Official Poetry

How to Write Poetry

2008-07-06T22:57:00.001-04:00

When you write letters or tell stories, do you usually start from a newspaper article you've read, an anecdote told or overheard, something witnessed, a general reflection? Start a poem in the way you're most comfortable with.

What sort of poem had you in mind? A story, a comment, a tribute, a protest, an elegy, a character study, a memorial? Skim through contemporary examples to start yourself off.

Make sure the subject's important to you. Death of a friend or family member, rites of passage, the bitter sweetness of first love, one of life's turning points, old transgressions, a childhood incident, injustices, unacknowledged fears... Use a mask of the second or third person if the content is too personal or painful.

Poetry-6

2008-01-17T03:26:00.002-05:00

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An Ode to Morpheus
Author: Ambreen Ishrat
Another night and Morpheus has yet again to deliver my share of sleep and so I lie on my pillow, gazing at the ceiling fan, while the rest of the world is in deep slumber.

How I wish to have hypnotized myself to sleep as counting sheep never helps, nor does hot milk. The sandman's sand has also turned colourless. Another night it is when sleep deludes my weary eyes and my overactive brain refuses to stop dwindling on the scenes of the day that has just ended and another one has started silently.

Sleep - the boundary between the two days - is missing. What's the big deal, you must think, for every now and then, a sleepless night is quite a normal thing for everyone. But for some, this is an affliction that happens more often than usual. And what makes me hysterical is the feeling that on one such desperate night, you also tend to discover that you have run out of your emergency supply of sleeping pills. So much for my emergency-coping capabilities!

The value of sleep can only be known to an insomniac and the bliss that it brings to one who is weary in soul as well. For me, sleep is what always restores my sanity, which can wear off the effects of gruesome schedules, worries and complications. It is a happy escape into the land of Oz, where I can slip into for a few hours and then come back to the familiar worrisome and often irksome daily routine. The problems remain the same, but my ability to cope with them certainly increases thrice-fold. Pimples on the tired skin reduce, the sting of heartaches lessen and deadlines become graspable. Like a magical transformation, overnight my body gets charged with energy. The brain starts brimming with activated and regenerated neurons and I rise as a new person who takes upon the irksome hurdles of yesterday with horns and does away with them.

So silent seems the world around me that I can hear the beating of my own heart. My weary eyes start to roam and scan the length and breadth of the four corners of the room. This is my room, my heaven, my prison and my hell. The walls wear my solitude like trophies and silence curls on my bed and encapsulates me like a shroud, where I lie with my hands resting neatly by my sides. I lift the palm of my hand and feel my own breath at the back of my hand - to seek reassurance that I am still alive and this isn't the silence of the grave. And if that is not enough, my mind goes on speculating on and on as to why certain things happened. At night, my mind turns itself into a backyard cluttered with half-conceived and half-aborted ideas and plans that I keep on stumbling upon. All the wonderful ideas and resolutions which flit like bats in the nook and crannies of my mind fade away on seeing the light of day. The mind is also the graveyard of memories and remembrances, which are easily resurrected in the dead of the twelfth hour. As morbidity tries to seize me, I kick my sheet off and get up, wishing no more to wait upon sleep or revel in thoughts of the past, analysis of the day just gone by and pipe dreams of tomorrow.

The chill gets the better of me and for one moment, the warmth of my bed tempts me to snuggle back again. But the body refuses to lay in monotony anymore. My mind swiftly scans the possibility of activities that can help me to kill time or to induce sufficient tiredness, forcing me to lull me back to the peaceful sojourn of sleep. A book to read maybe, a long overdue letter that needs to be answered or I can hook on the net and explore the web. All options are considered and struck off one after another, as my tired body protests. Hence, I decide to just lie low and breathe the surrounding silence in and out.

I enviously think of those who are sound asleep in their beds. I even envy those who stay up late by choice and still manage to get along with their day-to-day routine just fine. The marvellous generation of 'night people' - a different genre. What do I have in common with them? It is during such strange moments of serenity and uncanny silence that the likes of Keats heard the voice of the nightingale and so transported himself to the realm of beyond, and Matthew Arnold contemplated upon the crisis of faith for the mortals. As for me, I stand as miserable and confused as ever, feeling stupid that I have exhausted my supply of sleeping pills. I am not up because I choose to. I don't have the luxury of getting up late. With bleary eyes and a puffy and exhausted face, I must brave the world. I must get up at the crack of dawn and return late into the afternoon. Feeling panicky, I start to pace around the room. I ransack my medicine box feverishly like an addict, for a pill that might have escaped my groping fingers and must be hiding in some corner. But none are to be found. I sigh, as I can do nothing else.

I switch on the side lamp and see the room come alive in a soft hue of light and shadows, adding a delightfully mysterious and cozy look to the walls and ceiling. So often I am struck with the feeling that at nighttime, all non-living things tend to exude a life of their own. The fridge hums and drones silently, the walls whisper and breathe, as the electricity running behind them slithers, twists and runs with defying swiftness. I peer out of the window on to the street which looks deserted and dark. The carcass of a dying and spent moon is briefly revealed by the passing clouds and then its darkness again. Crickets creak, a dog lets out a churlish howl and the moths feverishly encircle the solitary lamp posts on the street, until the night watchman whistles and everything turns still, but only for a moment and then the rhythm resumes. A car passes by on the street, a midnight rider, whose stereo blare heinously and ruins the perfect harmony of the night and silence. As he passes away, the dog howls loudly in protest.

The breeze at night feels so very gentle. A few dry leaves and the ubiquitous plastic bags are sucked up by the breeze and they start to dance in whirlwind motion. The breeze turns into a wind, which twirls the leaves round and round on the deserted road, around the lamp posts and finally spits them out in a corner and then carries on its ballet alone. I prick my ears. A low rustle! Then a moan. It is the wind again. And the wind does cry. I switch on to FM radio, hungry and desperate for a human voice. The radio hums and creaks as I set the bandwidth and finally sweet sounds of rhythm and blues start to emit, filling in my jarred senses with companionship and peace. So I listen on and on, silently humming and rocking myself to sooth the dull pain in my body. I take up a long-neglected poetry book. Hours pass till I finally hear a slight chirp and then another one. The FM station has gone silent ages ago and static emitting from the radio drones on.

I keep my book away. I have survived a night without my sleeping pills and the delicate sensation of yesterday sleeps on my eyelids. I blink softly, hoping not to loose any of it. The aurora is wakening; the reign of darkness lies in recession. It's dawn and I am still looking through yesterday's eyes, though weary but with the hope that I am stepping into a new day and whatever it might bring. I will tackle it and I will tackle it well because I am a survivor, if not anything else.

About the Author
The author is a 26 years old single female, hailing from Karachi, Pakistan. She has earned her masters degree in English Literature from the University of Karachi. Currently working as a content and creative writer at an IT firm, she dreams of pursuing a M. Phil degree in literature some day. Her hobbies include reading and writing. For feedback, comments or critique she can be reached at galatia2001@yahoo.com .
...

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Poetry-6

2008-01-17T03:26:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

An Ode to Morpheus
Author: Ambreen Ishrat
Another night and Morpheus has yet again to deliver my share of sleep and so I lie on my pillow, gazing at the ceiling fan, while the rest of the world is in deep slumber.

How I wish to have hypnotized myself to sleep as counting sheep never helps, nor does hot milk. The sandman's sand has also turned colourless. Another night it is when sleep deludes my weary eyes and my overactive brain refuses to stop dwindling on the scenes of the day that has just ended and another one has started silently.

Sleep - the boundary between the two days - is missing. What's the big deal, you must think, for every now and then, a sleepless night is quite a normal thing for everyone. But for some, this is an affliction that happens more often than usual. And what makes me hysterical is the feeling that on one such desperate night, you also tend to discover that you have run out of your emergency supply of sleeping pills. So much for my emergency-coping capabilities!

The value of sleep can only be known to an insomniac and the bliss that it brings to one who is weary in soul as well. For me, sleep is what always restores my sanity, which can wear off the effects of gruesome schedules, worries and complications. It is a happy escape into the land of Oz, where I can slip into for a few hours and then come back to the familiar worrisome and often irksome daily routine. The problems remain the same, but my ability to cope with them certainly increases thrice-fold. Pimples on the tired skin reduce, the sting of heartaches lessen and deadlines become graspable. Like a magical transformation, overnight my body gets charged with energy. The brain starts brimming with activated and regenerated neurons and I rise as a new person who takes upon the irksome hurdles of yesterday with horns and does away with them.

So silent seems the world around me that I can hear the beating of my own heart. My weary eyes start to roam and scan the length and breadth of the four corners of the room. This is my room, my heaven, my prison and my hell. The walls wear my solitude like trophies and silence curls on my bed and encapsulates me like a shroud, where I lie with my hands resting neatly by my sides. I lift the palm of my hand and feel my own breath at the back of my hand - to seek reassurance that I am still alive and this isn't the silence of the grave. And if that is not enough, my mind goes on speculating on and on as to why certain things happened. At night, my mind turns itself into a backyard cluttered with half-conceived and half-aborted ideas and plans that I keep on stumbling upon. All the wonderful ideas and resolutions which flit like bats in the nook and crannies of my mind fade away on seeing the light of day. The mind is also the graveyard of memories and remembrances, which are easily resurrected in the dead of the twelfth hour. As morbidity tries to seize me, I kick my sheet off and get up, wishing no more to wait upon sleep or revel in thoughts of the past, analysis of the day just gone by and pipe dreams of tomorrow.

The chill gets the better of me and for one moment, the warmth of my bed tempts me to snuggle back again. But the body refuses to lay in monotony anymore. My mind swiftly scans the possibility of activities that can help me to kill time or to induce sufficient tiredness, forcing me to lull me back to the peaceful sojourn of sleep. A book to read maybe, a long overdue letter that needs to be answered or I can hook on the net and explore the web. All options are considered and struck off one after another, as my tired body protests. Hence, I decide to just lie low and breathe the surrounding silence in and out.

I enviously think of those who are sound asleep in their beds. I even envy those who stay up late by choice and still manage to get along with their day-to-day routine just fine. The marvellous generation of 'night people' - a different genre. What do I have in common with them? It is during such strange moments of serenity and uncanny silence that the likes of Keats heard the voice of the nightingale and so transported himself to the realm of beyond, and Matthew Arnold contemplated upon the crisis of faith for the mortals. As for me, I stand as miserable and confused as ever, feeling stupid that I have exhausted my supply of sleeping pills. I am not up because I choose to. I don't have the luxury of getting up late. With bleary eyes and a puffy and exhausted face, I must brave the world. I must get up at the crack of dawn and return late into the afternoon. Feeling panicky, I start to pace around the room. I ransack my medicine box feverishly like an addict, for a pill that might have escaped my groping fingers and must be hiding in some corner. But none are to be found. I sigh, as I can do nothing else.

I switch on the side lamp and see the room come alive in a soft hue of light and shadows, adding a delightfully mysterious and cozy look to the walls and ceiling. So often I am struck with the feeling that at nighttime, all non-living things tend to exude a life of their own. The fridge hums and drones silently, the walls whisper and breathe, as the electricity running behind them slithers, twists and runs with defying swiftness. I peer out of the window on to the street which looks deserted and dark. The carcass of a dying and spent moon is briefly revealed by the passing clouds and then its darkness again. Crickets creak, a dog lets out a churlish howl and the moths feverishly encircle the solitary lamp posts on the street, until the night watchman whistles and everything turns still, but only for a moment and then the rhythm resumes. A car passes by on the street, a midnight rider, whose stereo blare heinously and ruins the perfect harmony of the night and silence. As he passes away, the dog howls loudly in protest.

The breeze at night feels so very gentle. A few dry leaves and the ubiquitous plastic bags are sucked up by the breeze and they start to dance in whirlwind motion. The breeze turns into a wind, which twirls the leaves round and round on the deserted road, around the lamp posts and finally spits them out in a corner and then carries on its ballet alone. I prick my ears. A low rustle! Then a moan. It is the wind again. And the wind does cry. I switch on to FM radio, hungry and desperate for a human voice. The radio hums and creaks as I set the bandwidth and finally sweet sounds of rhythm and blues start to emit, filling in my jarred senses with companionship and peace. So I listen on and on, silently humming and rocking myself to sooth the dull pain in my body. I take up a long-neglected poetry book. Hours pass till I finally hear a slight chirp and then another one. The FM station has gone silent ages ago and static emitting from the radio drones on.

I keep my book away. I have survived a night without my sleeping pills and the delicate sensation of yesterday sleeps on my eyelids. I blink softly, hoping not to loose any of it. The aurora is wakening; the reign of darkness lies in recession. It's dawn and I am still looking through yesterday's eyes, though weary but with the hope that I am stepping into a new day and whatever it might bring. I will tackle it and I will tackle it well because I am a survivor, if not anything else.

About the Author
The author is a 26 years old single female, hailing from Karachi, Pakistan. She has earned her masters degree in English Literature from the University of Karachi. Currently working as a content and creative writer at an IT firm, she dreams of pursuing a M. Phil degree in literature some day. Her hobbies include reading and writing. For feedback, comments or critique she can be reached at galatia2001@yahoo.com .
...

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Poetry-5

2008-01-16T03:24:00.001-05:00
The Quest for Truth and the Meaning of Life

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The Quest for Truth and the Meaning of Life
Author: Laurent Grenier
All too often, the quest for truth which admittedly can only yield a qualified success in the best case scenario is tainted with laxity and fancifulness, and hence is doomed to a pitiable result, not to say failure.

Strangely enough, Blaise Pascal, a famous mathematician and philosopher, is also the eccentric author of a wager according to which the belief in God (or more precisely in heaven as a divine reward for virtue) is defensible to the extent that it is desirable, even though it cannot be proven. Actually, it is supposedly defensible because not only cannot it be proven, it also cannot be disproven. So desirableness is considered a valid foundation for belief, absent provableness and disprovableness! The door is open to every wild fancy, as long as we lack the empirical means of discrediting it.

Who have you invited to dinner, dear?
Some fabulous folks, my love.
Great! And who exactly are these folks?
I don't know, but they're fabulous.
Hum! How can you say they're fabulous if you don't know them?
Our neighbor across the road told me so.
Forgive me for asking, dear, but isn't that neighbor somewhat loopy? The story about angels watching over us sounds like wishful thinking to me.
This loopy neighbor, as you say, is more fun to listen to than your professor friends, with all due respect.
But don't you think
Forget about thinking; I'm in the mood for a dinner with some fabulous folks.

(If you feel this is a bit of sexist humor, note that I have made no mention of genders. The prejudices that offend us are sometimes very much our own. Remember also that Blaise Pascal was a man.)

Personally, I am not willing to forget about thinking. However attractive a claim may be, this attractiveness must be accompanied by credibleness which is a function of provableness and trustworthiness before I let it shape my view and govern my life. When credibleness is wanting, I reserve judgment until further notice and meanwhile accept reality as it appears to be, judging from facts and solid arguments, even if this appearance is not consistent with a so-called ideal world. Call me austere (not ready to indulge in the luxury of extravagant beliefs), a man of reason who associates his intellectual austerity with intellectual integrity.

Having said this, the reverse attitude is common, especially in matters that are beyond the realm of experience and hence can neither be proven nor disproven. For example, as regards their future here below or in the hereafter many do not reserve judgment or keep their minds open to all possibilities, ranging from disastrous to glorious. Instead they believe a heavenly tale because they fancy believing it and often also because a charismatic fortuneteller or spiritual leader, allegedly endowed with supernatural powers, is the originator of this tale.

In its wildest and blindest form, optimism coupled with faith is illustrative of this attitude. Is it fanciful and naïve, or even foolish? I am tempted to say yes, and yet I will resist this temptation. There is no denying that the inveterate optimists-believers derive significant enjoyment from seeing their future through rose-colored spectacles. In view of this enjoyment, a sophisticated better like Blaise Pascal will argue that these spectacles are worth wearing, at the risk of laboring under a delusion. I myself lack the grace or the guile of innocent or calculating souls to whom ignorance is bliss.

I am all the stauncher as a committed realist since life in itself without fables and despite the adversities that are part and parcel of it has meaning to my mind. Furthermore, I contend that religion (as a provider of a questionable but meaningful myth that makes a blissful afterlife the purpose of life) is often a poor substitute for wisdom. It is designed to offset the feeling of dissatisfaction that shadows the foolish if often profound concept of existential absurdity. The more deficient in wisdom, the more avid for religion (as defined above) one is.

Now, what is the content of this wisdom, or what is the meaning of life within the limits of life? I have answered this question to the best of my ability in my book A REASON FOR LIVING; and my answer like any answer to this question is sure to be both at odds and in keeping with yours. But then, the antithesis of statements and disagreements can usefully stimulate the intellect to resolve the oppositions and achieve a new and superior synthesis.

Be that as it may, this antithesis betrays the imperfection of individual wisdoms. At best, they are true up to a point, and we can persistently overpass this point while the complete truth indefinitely recedes like the horizon as we advance toward it. There are as many wisdoms as there are individuals; nevertheless their subjectiveness admits of much intersubjectiveness or deep intellectual kinship.

Let us explore a number of cardinal facts and logical assumptions based on facts.

1) The observable universe is the obvious manifestation of a tendency toward order. Ordered things and beings (that show their attraction for a particular inert or living state), ordered behaviors and thoughts (that aim at specific achievements and feelings in preference to others), all this testifies to the tendency in question, which can be called the principle of universal order. The oneness of this principle is not merely nominal. It is fundamental, as demonstrated by the unitary if complex human nature, which comprises every physical and nonphysical aspect of the observable universe.

2) The observation of the universe relates to observers: humans, in the present instance. It is limited to the observable manifestations of this universe, or provides a basis for knowledge only within the limits of these manifestations. Everything beyond these limits that is, everything that is not observably manifest transcends our ability to know it. Nevertheless, as Kant pointed out, our inability to know it does not suppress our curiosity. Whereas some accept the limits of knowledge, many don't. Their effort to penetrate the transcendental mystery ought to yield nothing except fancy.

3) There are, however, various degrees of fancy. At one extreme, fancy is grossly unfounded or rests on the highly suspicious claims of inspired visionaries regarding the great beyond. At the other extreme, fancy is very much tempered with reason. It is reminiscent of poetry, which assimilates certain things to kindred things through metaphors and similes.

Take for example the predictions of learned and intuitive futurists about the distant future of humanity. They clearly overstep the limits of knowledge, and yet they are believable to the extent that they are conceivable, given the way this knowledge represents humans and the world they inhabit. Take also for example the conjectures of learned and intuitive philosophers about the intimate nature of nonhuman beings or things beyond their observable characteristics. Like the above-mentioned predictions, they clearly overstep the limits of knowledge, and yet they are believable to the extent that they are conceivable, given the way this knowledge represents humans and nonhuman beings or things.

4) With respect to our human nature, observations include introspections and reveal both the spiritual and material aspects of this nature. Since we measure the value of life in terms of pleasure (sensual, intellectual, or moral), it is safe to say that the spiritual aspect is preeminent.

By underscoring the pleasure principle in moral matters, I imply that even the most edifying proof of nobility comprises an element of self-interest. Indeed, nobility is an ideal in the pursuit of which the noble soul takes pleasure not the low sort of pleasure that one derives from such activities as feasting on a palatable dish or having intercourse with a seductive lover, but the most elevated sort. Therefore, self-interest and nobility are not mutually exclusive. When they come together, the former is exalted by the latter.

5) As we fathom our human nature, we ultimately acknowledge the principle of universal order as the essence of our being, which can normally acquire habits of thought or behavior that are conducive to well-being. And so gratitude adds to the acknowledgment, though misery may reverse this attitude when it plagues us despite ourselves.

Why such misery? There is no answer to this question. We can ascertain the possibility of misery; we cannot explain it. Saying that the principle of universal order is such as to permit the occurrence of misery is like saying that misery is because it can be, which is no explanation. In short, misery is a mystery; and the best we can do is fight and overcome it, or resign ourselves to it when it is insuperable.

Actually, we can do better. We can regard misery as a precious opportunity for courage and merit, whereas an absolutely blissful and effortless life would require no courage and hence afford no merit.

But what about extreme cases where we are truly miserable and helpless? We can then take comfort from the knowledge that the principle of universal order is the essence of our being. Each of us is a single human incarnation of this principle among countless other like incarnations, which offer the prospect of a meritorious happiness through considerable effort.

About the Author
Laurent Grenier's writing career spans over twenty years. During this time he has broadened and deepened his worldview, by dint of much reflection and study, and in the end has crafted A REASON FOR LIVING, his best work to date.

Official web site: http://laurentgrenier.com/ARFL.html
...

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Poetry-40

2008-01-15T03:21:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Traditional VS. Modern Anniversary Gifts
Author: Slade Hartwell

Most people are familiar with the traditional materials list that good etiquette requires us use as a guide when selecting a gift to commemorate a wedding anniversary. If you are like most people, you might find it a bit challenging to convert the materials on the list into an acceptable gift idea. There may be more choices available to you than you realize. Do you know that an updated "modern" gift list is available which is becoming more and more popular? This article touches on the history of the traditional list, highlights the differences between the modern and traditional lists, and helps you decide which is right for you.
Parts of the traditional list have existed since medieval times. Historians can trace the origins of silver and golden anniversaries to medieval Germany, where garlands made of these metals were presented as gifts for the 25th and 50th years of marriage. The rest of the list may not be as traditional as you think. I was surprised to learn that the traditional list, as we know it today, did not exist until 1937. In that year, the American National Retail Jeweler Association published a list, which associated a material for each Anniversary up to the 15th year and then each fifth year after that up to the 60th Anniversary. The following is the materials list from 1937, through the 60th year:
* First - Paper
* Second - Cotton
* Third - Leather
* Fourth - Fruit/Flowers
* Fifth - Wood
* Sixth - Candy/Iron
* Seventh - Wool/Copper
* Eighth - Bronze/Pottery
* Ninth - Pottery/Willow
* Tenth - Tin/Aluminum
* Eleventh - Steel
* Twelfth - Silk/Linen
* Thirteenth - Lace
* Fourteenth - Ivory
* Fifteenth - Crystal
* Twentieth - China
* Twenty-Fifth - Silver
* Thirtieth - Pearl
* Thirty-Fifth - Coral
* Fortieth - Ruby
* Forty-Fifth - Sapphire
* Fiftieth - Gold
* Fifty-fifth - Emerald
* Sixtieth - Diamond
The modern anniversary materials list presents us with a contemporary, easier to use alternative. The modern list has no clear beginning, but like the original, each year's gift is more precious than the last. This arrangement is intended to honor the longevity of the commitment. The new list retains the spirit of the traditional list, but loses the some of the sense of etiquette in the original. Although more convenient, the modern list sacrifices the thoughtfulness previously required to make a good gift from the more mundane materials on the old list. However, the modern list is more extravagant (expensive) than the original, which in some cases may be more appreciated than a thoughtful but humble gift from the traditional list. The following is the widely accepted modern list, through the 60th year:
* First - Clocks
* Second - China
* Third - Crystal/ Glass
* Fourth - Appliances
* Fifth - Silverware
* Sixth - Candy/Iron
* Seventh - Desk Sets
* Eighth - Bronze/Pottery
* Ninth - Linen/Lace
* Tenth - Leather
* Eleventh - Jewelry
* Twelfth - Pearls
* Thirteenth - Textiles/Furs
* Fourteenth - Gold Jewelry
* Fifteenth - Watches
* Twentieth - Platinum
* Twenty-Fifth - Silver
* Thirtieth - Diamond
* Thirty-Fifth - Jade
* Fortieth - Ruby
* Forty-Fifth - Sapphire
* Fiftieth - Gold
* Fifty-fifth - Emerald
* Sixtieth - Diamond Jubilee
For most couples, I recommend using the modern list. When selecting a gift from the modern list you have the benefit of more specificity, for example a desk set is much more clear than copper/wool. With the modern list, you won't risk insulting your spouse by rewarding 10 years of companionship with a pitiful tin or aluminum gift. Believe me, she won't be satisfied with the excuse of tradition. Also, good luck finding the ivory candlesticks for year 14! Unless you really enjoy the creative challenge of using the traditional list, try the modern list this year.
Slade Hartwell, Webmaster at http://www.ezromantic.com/ " http://www.ezromantic.com/

http://www.ezromantic.com/home.html " Romance Relationship Advice: We offer tons of romance and relationship help such as: great articles, advice, love poems, book reviews, gift ideas, romantic travel guides, a relationships forum, and more.
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Poetry-4

2008-01-14T03:20:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

William Butler Yeats and Alchemy
Author: Robert Bruce Baird
There are adepts outside of what is called alchemy who have achieved great things in these areas and there are alchemists before Socrates and Aristotle, or Da Vinci and Newton; who all true experts know were alchemists. For any author or journalist who would produce a TV documentary on the subject and not even interview a hermeticist (much less an alchemist) it is obvious their intent is not to educate. So when you see Time/Life videos doing that kind of show I hope you know you are being fed lies. In February, 1925 Yeats wrote this in Capri.
"The End of the Cycle
A Vision A

In the first edition of A Vision the section 'Dove or Swan' contains a relatively long passage on the relationship of the gyres to the contemporary period and the near future (AV A 210-215), which was omitted in the second edition. It is given here for reference, with the page breaks indicated. The first sentence given here (in italics) is the last on AV B 300, and the text continues from there.

Having bruised their hands upon that limit men, for the first time since the seventeenth century, see the world as an object of contemplation, not as something to be remade, and some few, meeting the limit in their special study, even doubt if there is any common experience, that is to say doubt the possibility of science.

It is said that at Phase 8 there is always civil war, and at Phase 22 always war, and as this war is always a defeat for those who have conquered, we have repeated the wars of Alexander.

I discover already the first phasePhase 23of the last quarter in certain friends of mine, and in writers, poets and sculptors admired by those friends, who have a form of strong love and hate hitherto unknown in the arts. It is with them a matter of conscience to live in their own exact instant of time, and they defend their conscience like theologians. They are all absorbed in some technical research to the entire exclusion of the personal dream. It is as though the forms in the stone or in their reverie began to move with an energy which is not that of the human mind. Very often these forms are mechanical, are as it were the mathematical forms that sustain the physical primaryI think of the work of Mr Wyndham Lewis, his powerful "cacophony of sardine tins," and of those marble eggs, or objects of burnished steel too drawn up or tapered out to be called eggs, of M. Brancussi [sic], who has gone further than Mr Wyndham Lewis from recognisable subject matter and so from personality; of sculptors who would certainly be rejected as impure by a true sectary of this moment, the Scandinavian Milles, Metrovi? perhaps, masters of a geometrical pattern or rhythm which seems to impose itself wholly from beyond the mind, the artist "standing outside himself." I compare them to sculpture or painting where now the artist now the model imposes his personality. I think especially of the art of the 21st Phase which was at times so anarchic, Rodin creating his powerful art out of the fragments of those Gates of Hell that he had found himself unable to hold togetherimages out of a personal dream, "the hell of Baudelaire not of Dante," he had said to Symons. I find at this 23rd Phase which is it is said the first where there is hatred of the abstract, where the intellect turns upon itself, Mr Ezra Pound, Mr Eliot, Mr Joyce, Signor Pirandello, who either eliminate from metaphor the poet's phantasy and substitute a strangeness discovered by historical or contemporary research or who break up the logical processes of thought by flooding them with associated ideas or words that seem to drift into the mind by chance; or who set side by side as in "Henry IV," "The Waste Land," "Ulysses," the physical primarya lunatic among his keepers, a man fishing behind a gas works, the vulgarity of a single Dublin day prolonged through 700 pagesand the spiritual primary, delirium, the Fisher King, Ulysses' wandering. It is as though myth and fact, united until the exhaustion of the Renaissance, have fallen so far apart that man understands for the first time the rigidity of fact, and calls up, by that very recognition, myththe Maskwhich now but gropes its way out of the mind's dark but will shortly pursue and terrify. In practical life one expects the same technical inspiration, the doing of this or that not because one would, or should, but because one can, consequent licence, and with those "out of phase" anarchic violence with no sanction in general principles. If there is a violent revolution, and it is the last phase where political revolution is possible, the dish will be made from what is found in the pantry and the cook will not open her book. There may be greater ability that hitherto for men will be set free from old restraint, but the old intellectual hierarchy gone they will thwart and jostle one another. One tries to discover the nature of the 24th Phase which will offer peaceperhaps by some generally accepted political or religious action, perhaps by some more profound generalisationcalling up before the mind those who speak its thoughts in the language of our earlier time. Peguy in his Joan of Arc trilogy displays the national and religious tradition of the French poor, as he, a man perhaps of the 24th phase, would have it, and Claudel in his "L'Otage" the religious and secular hierarchies perceived as history. I foresee a time when the majority of men will so accept an historical tradition that they will quarrel, not as to who can impose his personality upon others but as to who can best embody the common aim, when all personality will seem an impurity"sentimentality," "sullenness," "egotism"something that revolts not morals alone but good taste.

There will be no longer great intellect for a ceaseless activity will be required of all; and where rights are swallowed up in duties, and solitude is difficult, creation except among avowedly archaistic and unpopular groups will grow impossible. Phase 25 may arise, as the code wears out from repetition, to give new motives for obedience, or out of some scientific discovery which seems to contrast, a merely historical acquiescence, with an enthusiastic acceptance of the general will conceived as a present energy"Sibyll [sic] what would you?" "I would die." Then with the last gyre must come a desire to be ruled or rather, seeing that desire is all but dead, an adoration of force spiritual or physical, and society as mechanical force be complete at last.
Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent

By those wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood
Themselves obedient,
Knowing not evil or good.

A decadence will descend, by perpetual moral improvement, upon a community which may seem like some woman of New York or Paris who has renounced her rouge pot to lose her figure and grow coars of skin and dull of brain, feeding her calves and babies somewhere on the edge of the wilderness. The decadence of the Greco-Roman world with its violent soldiers and its mahogany dark young athletes was as great, but that suggested the bubbles of life turned into marbles, whereas what awaits us, being democratic and primary, may suggest bubbles in a frozen pondmathematical Babylonian starlight.

When the new era comes bringing its stream of irrational force it will, as did Christianity, find its philosophy already impressed upon the minority who have, true to phase, turned away at the last gyre from the Physical Primary. And it must awake into life, not Dürer's, nor Blake's, nor Milton's human form divinenor yet Nietzsche's superman, nor Patmore's catholic, boasting "a tongue that's dead"the brood of the Sistine Chapelbut organic groups, covens of physical or intellectual kin melted out of the frozen mass. I imagine new races, as it were, seeking domination, a world resembling but for its immensity that of the Greek tribeseach with its own Daimon or ancestral herothe brood of Leda, War and Love; history grown symbolic, the biography changed into myth. Above all I imagine everywhere the opposites, no mere alternation between nothing and something like the Christian brute and ascetic, but true opposites, each living the other's death, dying the other's life.

It is said that the primary impulse "creates the event" but that the antithetical "follows it" and by this I understand that the Second Fountain will arise after a long preparation and as it were out of the very heart of human knowledge, and seem when it comes no interruption but a climax. It is possible that the ever increasing separation from the community as a whole of the cultivated classes, their increasing certainty, and that falling in two of the human mind which I have seen in certain works of art is preparation. During the period said to commence in 1927, with the 11th gyre, must arise a form of philosophy, which will become religious and ethical in the 12th gyre and be in all things opposite of that vast plaster Herculean image, final primary thought. It will be concrete in expression, establish itself by immediate experience, seek no general agreement, make little of God or any exterior unity, and it will call that good which a man can contemplate himself as doing always and no other man doing at all. It will make a cardinal truth of man's immortality that its virtue may not lack sanction, and of the soul's re-embodiment that it may restore to virtue that long preparation none can give and hold death an interruption. The supreme experience, Plotinus' ecstasy, ecstasy of the Saint, will recede, for menfinding it difficultsubstituted dogma and idol, abstractions of all sorts, things beyond experience; and men may be long content with those more trivial supernatural benedictions as when Athena took Achilles by his yellow hair. Men will no longer separate the idea of God from that of human genius, human productivity in all its forms.

Unlike Christianity which had for its first Roman teachers cobblers and weavers, this thought must find expression among those that are most subtle, most rich in memory; that Gainsborough face floats up; among the learnedevery sort of learningamong the richevery sort of richesand the best of those that express it will be given power, less because of that they promise than of that they seem and are. This much can be thought because it is the reversal of what we know, but those kindreds once formed must obey irrational force and so create hitherto unknown experience, or that which is incredible.

Though it cannot interrupt the intellectual streambeing born from it and moving within itit may grow a fanaticism and a terror, and at first outsetting oppress the ignoranteven the innocentas Christianity oppressed the wise, seeing that the day is far off when the two halves of man can define each its own unity in the other as in a mirror, Sun in Moon, Moon in Sun, and so escape out of the Wheel." (1)

When he says 'the Christian brute and ascetic' is he making reference to the family of stoic philosophers or Bruttii including the Admiral who accompanied Julius Caesar when they met the Keltic fleet and invaded what is called Britain today after them? This same family includes another Brutus we learned about from another Hermetic named Shakespeare. That family was still standing up for Keltic egalitarianism when it killed Julius Caesar or when Rome was founded. Did he know the history of the Milesian Stuarts from before the various influxes to the Emerald Isles as they returned many millennia after leaving due to glacial effects? There is so much code in this prose and poetry. The sun and moon surely make a wheel and this ancient knowledge probably pre-exists the coming of white men through whatever adept mutation or happenstance that allowed it. I implore the reader to spend a lot of time with this one sentence"This much can be thought because it is the reversal of what we know, but those kindreds once formed must obey irrational force and so create hitherto unknown experience, or that which is incredible."

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Author of Diverse Druids
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Poetry-4

2008-01-14T03:20:00.001-05:00

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William Butler Yeats and Alchemy
Author: Robert Bruce Baird
There are adepts outside of what is called alchemy who have achieved great things in these areas and there are alchemists before Socrates and Aristotle, or Da Vinci and Newton; who all true experts know were alchemists. For any author or journalist who would produce a TV documentary on the subject and not even interview a hermeticist (much less an alchemist) it is obvious their intent is not to educate. So when you see Time/Life videos doing that kind of show I hope you know you are being fed lies. In February, 1925 Yeats wrote this in Capri.
"The End of the Cycle
A Vision A

In the first edition of A Vision the section 'Dove or Swan' contains a relatively long passage on the relationship of the gyres to the contemporary period and the near future (AV A 210-215), which was omitted in the second edition. It is given here for reference, with the page breaks indicated. The first sentence given here (in italics) is the last on AV B 300, and the text continues from there.

Having bruised their hands upon that limit men, for the first time since the seventeenth century, see the world as an object of contemplation, not as something to be remade, and some few, meeting the limit in their special study, even doubt if there is any common experience, that is to say doubt the possibility of science.

It is said that at Phase 8 there is always civil war, and at Phase 22 always war, and as this war is always a defeat for those who have conquered, we have repeated the wars of Alexander.

I discover already the first phasePhase 23of the last quarter in certain friends of mine, and in writers, poets and sculptors admired by those friends, who have a form of strong love and hate hitherto unknown in the arts. It is with them a matter of conscience to live in their own exact instant of time, and they defend their conscience like theologians. They are all absorbed in some technical research to the entire exclusion of the personal dream. It is as though the forms in the stone or in their reverie began to move with an energy which is not that of the human mind. Very often these forms are mechanical, are as it were the mathematical forms that sustain the physical primaryI think of the work of Mr Wyndham Lewis, his powerful "cacophony of sardine tins," and of those marble eggs, or objects of burnished steel too drawn up or tapered out to be called eggs, of M. Brancussi [sic], who has gone further than Mr Wyndham Lewis from recognisable subject matter and so from personality; of sculptors who would certainly be rejected as impure by a true sectary of this moment, the Scandinavian Milles, Metrovi? perhaps, masters of a geometrical pattern or rhythm which seems to impose itself wholly from beyond the mind, the artist "standing outside himself." I compare them to sculpture or painting where now the artist now the model imposes his personality. I think especially of the art of the 21st Phase which was at times so anarchic, Rodin creating his powerful art out of the fragments of those Gates of Hell that he had found himself unable to hold togetherimages out of a personal dream, "the hell of Baudelaire not of Dante," he had said to Symons. I find at this 23rd Phase which is it is said the first where there is hatred of the abstract, where the intellect turns upon itself, Mr Ezra Pound, Mr Eliot, Mr Joyce, Signor Pirandello, who either eliminate from metaphor the poet's phantasy and substitute a strangeness discovered by historical or contemporary research or who break up the logical processes of thought by flooding them with associated ideas or words that seem to drift into the mind by chance; or who set side by side as in "Henry IV," "The Waste Land," "Ulysses," the physical primarya lunatic among his keepers, a man fishing behind a gas works, the vulgarity of a single Dublin day prolonged through 700 pagesand the spiritual primary, delirium, the Fisher King, Ulysses' wandering. It is as though myth and fact, united until the exhaustion of the Renaissance, have fallen so far apart that man understands for the first time the rigidity of fact, and calls up, by that very recognition, myththe Maskwhich now but gropes its way out of the mind's dark but will shortly pursue and terrify. In practical life one expects the same technical inspiration, the doing of this or that not because one would, or should, but because one can, consequent licence, and with those "out of phase" anarchic violence with no sanction in general principles. If there is a violent revolution, and it is the last phase where political revolution is possible, the dish will be made from what is found in the pantry and the cook will not open her book. There may be greater ability that hitherto for men will be set free from old restraint, but the old intellectual hierarchy gone they will thwart and jostle one another. One tries to discover the nature of the 24th Phase which will offer peaceperhaps by some generally accepted political or religious action, perhaps by some more profound generalisationcalling up before the mind those who speak its thoughts in the language of our earlier time. Peguy in his Joan of Arc trilogy displays the national and religious tradition of the French poor, as he, a man perhaps of the 24th phase, would have it, and Claudel in his "L'Otage" the religious and secular hierarchies perceived as history. I foresee a time when the majority of men will so accept an historical tradition that they will quarrel, not as to who can impose his personality upon others but as to who can best embody the common aim, when all personality will seem an impurity"sentimentality," "sullenness," "egotism"something that revolts not morals alone but good taste.

There will be no longer great intellect for a ceaseless activity will be required of all; and where rights are swallowed up in duties, and solitude is difficult, creation except among avowedly archaistic and unpopular groups will grow impossible. Phase 25 may arise, as the code wears out from repetition, to give new motives for obedience, or out of some scientific discovery which seems to contrast, a merely historical acquiescence, with an enthusiastic acceptance of the general will conceived as a present energy"Sibyll [sic] what would you?" "I would die." Then with the last gyre must come a desire to be ruled or rather, seeing that desire is all but dead, an adoration of force spiritual or physical, and society as mechanical force be complete at last.
Constrained, arraigned, baffled, bent and unbent

By those wire-jointed jaws and limbs of wood
Themselves obedient,
Knowing not evil or good.

A decadence will descend, by perpetual moral improvement, upon a community which may seem like some woman of New York or Paris who has renounced her rouge pot to lose her figure and grow coars of skin and dull of brain, feeding her calves and babies somewhere on the edge of the wilderness. The decadence of the Greco-Roman world with its violent soldiers and its mahogany dark young athletes was as great, but that suggested the bubbles of life turned into marbles, whereas what awaits us, being democratic and primary, may suggest bubbles in a frozen pondmathematical Babylonian starlight.

When the new era comes bringing its stream of irrational force it will, as did Christianity, find its philosophy already impressed upon the minority who have, true to phase, turned away at the last gyre from the Physical Primary. And it must awake into life, not Dürer's, nor Blake's, nor Milton's human form divinenor yet Nietzsche's superman, nor Patmore's catholic, boasting "a tongue that's dead"the brood of the Sistine Chapelbut organic groups, covens of physical or intellectual kin melted out of the frozen mass. I imagine new races, as it were, seeking domination, a world resembling but for its immensity that of the Greek tribeseach with its own Daimon or ancestral herothe brood of Leda, War and Love; history grown symbolic, the biography changed into myth. Above all I imagine everywhere the opposites, no mere alternation between nothing and something like the Christian brute and ascetic, but true opposites, each living the other's death, dying the other's life.

It is said that the primary impulse "creates the event" but that the antithetical "follows it" and by this I understand that the Second Fountain will arise after a long preparation and as it were out of the very heart of human knowledge, and seem when it comes no interruption but a climax. It is possible that the ever increasing separation from the community as a whole of the cultivated classes, their increasing certainty, and that falling in two of the human mind which I have seen in certain works of art is preparation. During the period said to commence in 1927, with the 11th gyre, must arise a form of philosophy, which will become religious and ethical in the 12th gyre and be in all things opposite of that vast plaster Herculean image, final primary thought. It will be concrete in expression, establish itself by immediate experience, seek no general agreement, make little of God or any exterior unity, and it will call that good which a man can contemplate himself as doing always and no other man doing at all. It will make a cardinal truth of man's immortality that its virtue may not lack sanction, and of the soul's re-embodiment that it may restore to virtue that long preparation none can give and hold death an interruption. The supreme experience, Plotinus' ecstasy, ecstasy of the Saint, will recede, for menfinding it difficultsubstituted dogma and idol, abstractions of all sorts, things beyond experience; and men may be long content with those more trivial supernatural benedictions as when Athena took Achilles by his yellow hair. Men will no longer separate the idea of God from that of human genius, human productivity in all its forms.

Unlike Christianity which had for its first Roman teachers cobblers and weavers, this thought must find expression among those that are most subtle, most rich in memory; that Gainsborough face floats up; among the learnedevery sort of learningamong the richevery sort of richesand the best of those that express it will be given power, less because of that they promise than of that they seem and are. This much can be thought because it is the reversal of what we know, but those kindreds once formed must obey irrational force and so create hitherto unknown experience, or that which is incredible.

Though it cannot interrupt the intellectual streambeing born from it and moving within itit may grow a fanaticism and a terror, and at first outsetting oppress the ignoranteven the innocentas Christianity oppressed the wise, seeing that the day is far off when the two halves of man can define each its own unity in the other as in a mirror, Sun in Moon, Moon in Sun, and so escape out of the Wheel." (1)

When he says 'the Christian brute and ascetic' is he making reference to the family of stoic philosophers or Bruttii including the Admiral who accompanied Julius Caesar when they met the Keltic fleet and invaded what is called Britain today after them? This same family includes another Brutus we learned about from another Hermetic named Shakespeare. That family was still standing up for Keltic egalitarianism when it killed Julius Caesar or when Rome was founded. Did he know the history of the Milesian Stuarts from before the various influxes to the Emerald Isles as they returned many millennia after leaving due to glacial effects? There is so much code in this prose and poetry. The sun and moon surely make a wheel and this ancient knowledge probably pre-exists the coming of white men through whatever adept mutation or happenstance that allowed it. I implore the reader to spend a lot of time with this one sentence"This much can be thought because it is the reversal of what we know, but those kindreds once formed must obey irrational force and so create hitherto unknown experience, or that which is incredible."

About the Author
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Author of Diverse Druids
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Poetry-39

2008-01-13T03:19:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Poetry Critics
Author: millsy75
My name is Jeffrey Michael Miller and my book entitled " From The Inside Out " is my first collection of poetry that's been published through Publishamerica. The book is doing well and even though this is my first book I've been writing poetry for quite some time. I care about the art and how the art effects people.

I want to talk some about how poetry is seen in my opinion and how narrow the view of some can be when it comes to poetry and the worth and value it holds in society. I've heard many times by reviewers and critics and even booksellers that poetry books are hard to sell and that little interest is taken in the art of poetry by the general public but I beg to differ on these views held by so many in the literary world.

I feel poetry is such a unique and expressive art that has stood the test of time and as we look back on poets like Wordsworth and Dickinson and all the wonderful poets of a time gone by we can all agree that nobody can discount or dismiss the contributions these people have made to the literary world.

The Wordsworth's and Lord Byron's are still out there today working hard to bring back into the mainstream the powerful emotions and feelings that once struck a chord so long ago. These people are putting their heart and soul into their words and putting forth messages that they want to share with readers from all origins and backgrounds.

We should not put limitations on them by telling them their art is dead or that their art is not much of a selling point in society because it is and if it wasn't we would not have so many poetry forums and websites accross the infinite space of the internet from nation to nation. One website I visited has over five million poets in their database alone so obviously their is an interest in poetry and it's growing bigger with every passing day. Multitudes of people from accross the globe enjoy this art we call poetry and this is a fact that should not be ignored.

There is also a problem in my view with some people who take the role of critic and these people judge the work of others and seek to influence how an individual chooses to express themselves through poetry. I feel that each person and expression is unique and I have never been much of a fan of the critic as Teddy Roosevelt reminded us in " The Battle of Life " it's not the critic that counts and I agree.

Individualism and uniqueness spawns genius in my opinion in every facet of life or work and it's also certainly true when it comes to poetry. I want to read new and freshly presented material from someone original. I don't want to see someone trying to copy another artist or his or her ways. I want to see someone expressing their own ways that I will not judge because I feel I have no rightful place in doing so.

We must remember that it's not my opinion or the opinion of a critic that counts when it comes to you and your work and the feelings you wish to present. These things are yours and yours alone that nobody should touch or try to fine tune in any fashion. If Shakespeare had allowed his work to be sorted out and played with by the masses then he would not have been the Shakespeare we know today and your work will not be yours if you allow it to be changed to fit the views of others.

Let your vision and your work live and die on it's own and let it live independantly and develop into what you wish it to be not what someone else wants it to be so it never ceases to be your very own.
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Poetry-38

2008-01-12T03:15:00.001-05:00

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Traditional VS Modern Anniversary Gifts
Author: Slade Hartwell
Most people are familiar with the traditional materials list that good etiquette requires us use as a guide when selecting a gift to commemorate a wedding anniversary. If you are like most people, you might find it a bit challenging to convert the materials on the list into an acceptable gift idea. There may be more choices available to you than you realize. Do you know that an updated "modern" gift list is available which is becoming more and more popular? This article touches on the history of the traditional list, highlights the differences between the modern and traditional lists, and helps you decide which is right for you.

Parts of the traditional list have existed since medieval times. Historians can trace the origins of silver and golden anniversaries to medieval Germany, where garlands made of these metals were presented as gifts for the 25th and 50th years of marriage. The rest of the list may not be as traditional as you think. I was surprised to learn that the traditional list, as we know it today, did not exist until 1937. In that year, the American National Retail Jeweler Association published a list, which associated a material for each Anniversary up to the 15th year and then each fifth year after that up to the 60th Anniversary. The following is the materials list from 1937, through the 60th year:

* First - Paper
* Second - Cotton
* Third - Leather
* Fourth - Fruit/Flowers
* Fifth - Wood
* Sixth - Candy/Iron
* Seventh - Wool/Copper
* Eighth - Bronze/Pottery
* Ninth - Pottery/Willow
* Tenth - Tin/Aluminum
* Eleventh - Steel
* Twelfth - Silk/Linen
* Thirteenth - Lace
* Fourteenth - Ivory
* Fifteenth - Crystal
* Twentieth - China
* Twenty-Fifth - Silver
* Thirtieth - Pearl
* Thirty-Fifth - Coral
* Fortieth - Ruby
* Forty-Fifth - Sapphire
* Fiftieth - Gold
* Fifty-fifth - Emerald
* Sixtieth - Diamond

The modern anniversary materials list presents us with a contemporary, easier to use alternative. The modern list has no clear beginning, but like the original, each year's gift is more precious than the last. This arrangement is intended to honor the longevity of the commitment. The new list retains the spirit of the traditional list, but loses the some of the sense of etiquette in the original. Although more convenient, the modern list sacrifices the thoughtfulness previously required to make a good gift from the more mundane materials on the old list. However, the modern list is more extravagant (expensive) than the original, which in some cases may be more appreciated than a thoughtful but humble gift from the traditional list. The following is the widely accepted modern list, through the 60th year:

* First - Clocks
* Second - China
* Third - Crystal/ Glass
* Fourth - Appliances
* Fifth - Silverware
* Sixth - Candy/Iron
* Seventh - Desk Sets
* Eighth - Bronze/Pottery
* Ninth - Linen/Lace
* Tenth - Leather
* Eleventh - Jewelry
* Twelfth - Pearls
* Thirteenth - Textiles/Furs
* Fourteenth - Gold Jewelry
* Fifteenth - Watches
* Twentieth - Platinum
* Twenty-Fifth - Silver
* Thirtieth - Diamond
* Thirty-Fifth - Jade
* Fortieth - Ruby
* Forty-Fifth - Sapphire
* Fiftieth - Gold
* Fifty-fifth - Emerald
* Sixtieth - Diamond Jubilee

For most couples, I recommend using the modern list. When selecting a gift from the modern list you have the benefit of more specificity, for example a desk set is much more clear than copper/wool. With the modern list, you won't risk insulting your spouse by rewarding 10 years of companionship with a pitiful tin or aluminum gift. Believe me, she won't be satisfied with the excuse of tradition. Also, good luck finding the ivory candlesticks for year 14! Unless you really enjoy the creative challenge of using the traditional list, try the modern list this year.
About the Author
Slade Hartwell, Webmaster at www.ezromantic.com

http://www.ezromantic.com/home.html Romance Relationship Advice We offer tons of romance and relationship help such as: great articles, advice, love poems, book reviews, gift ideas, romantic travel guides, a relationships forum, and more.
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Poetry-37

2008-01-11T03:14:00.001-05:00
Find the Artist Within

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Find the Artist Within
Author: Eileen Bergen

Find the Artist Within
by Eileen Bergen
The Artful Crafter
www.theartfulcrafter.com

Can anyone be an artist?

People admiring my work often say, "I could never do that!" I say, "Yes, you can!"

Eight years ago, during a very difficult time in my career in finance (Downsizings, layoffs let's not talk about it, OK?), my company sent me to a development workshop for female executives.

I came out of a particularly thought-provoking discussion group and penned the following very prophetic free verse.

Threads They Said
Mimi said, "Why don't you paint again?"

I said, "There's no time. I crunch numbers now."

Carole said, "You can do it!"

I said, "No. I don't think so."

Cheryl said, "You have an artist within. Reach down. Bring it out."

I said, "My numbers they pay the bills.

Though, God knows, they don't feed the soul anymore!"

Martha said, "There's a strength within you."

I asked, "They why do I feel so weak, so beaten?"

Bob said, "Reach for the sky. Be your mother's daughter.

Write poetry. Perhaps the answer lies within."

I reached. I created. I wrote. I discovered.
The threads came together.
I design tee-shirts now.
On a glorious sunny beach.
I write my musings in between.
And share them with other artists
--- like me.

I didn't really dwell on these thoughts at the time since I ended up taking early retirement and had no intention of going back to work.

"Threads They Said" got filed away with my other work files. I only unearthed it recently and was stunned to realize how it all has come true.

Except we don't live on a glorious sunny beach, we live on a mountainside overlooking a beautiful lake close enough for me! And now you are some of the other artists I share my musings with!

I believe anyone with a creative eye can be an artist. If you know what you like when you see it, you can be an artist. If you know what someone else will like, you can be a commercial artist. You only need to find your medium or craft.

To find the artistic spirit within you:

1. Think about your abilities, not your dis-abilities; what you can do, not what you can't. Maybe you're good with the computer. Think graphic arts. Maybe you wield a mean needle. Think of practical sewn items to which you can add artistic touches.

Today with the endless supply of craft materials and kits to get you started, there's something for everyone or I should say something for every artist.

2. Determine your bliss. I once read that if a woman thinks back to what she most enjoyed when she was between 8 and 11, she can identify her bliss. For men, it's between 10 and 14. They mature later, you know some women would say never. If, at that age, you were always making "stuff" (doesn't matter what) and loved having your own crayons (that no one else was allowed under penalty of death to touch) and maybe your own set of colored pencils, art and crafting could be your bliss.

If you took particular joy in actually producing something an end product rather than just messing with all those neat (or should I say, messy) paints, you almost certainly have an artist within.

3. Browse a local crafts superstore or Internet crafting sites (please start by browsing around TheArtfulCrafter.com!). Go up and down the aisles, whether virtual or real, and see what appeals to you. Purchase a few kits. [Aside: If you intend to sell what you make from the get-go, be sure to consider what will also appeal to your future customers.]

4. Don't be afraid to try something new. To me, a sub-definition of artist is "someone who is always trying something new" new techniques, new media. You have little to lose the cost of a kit or a few tubes of paint and very much to gain!

by Eileen Bergen
The Artful Crafter
www.theartfulcrafter.com

About the Author
Ms Bergen has had a varied career, first as a special education teacher and than, after getting a MBA degree, as a vice president of a major insurance company. For the past eight years, she has been creating and selling her crafts.
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Poetry-36

2008-01-10T03:12:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Critique the Poem not the Poet
Author: Rose DesRochers
The act of writing poetry is something that is very personal to us poets and sharing it for the first time can be a very frightening experience. The first experience of having your work criticized can boggle our mind and set us back a step in our writing. However critique is essential in any writer's career. Accepting criticism is something that we all must face even if we don't like it. When I received my first harsh critique it was on a ezboard workshop and right then I wanted to give up writing. They were arrogant and my opinion very mean. It was the most painful experience.
Running an online writing community for the last two years I have met a few arrogant and mean people just like the one on Ezboard. I think that some of these poets have gone to workshops and have been critique in this matter, so now they think this is how one critiques. Wrong!
How to give a critique :
Short reviews like good poem, I like this, and awesome are not useful to any poet. When giving a critique remember that poets are looking for in depth critique. As writers we strive on feedback and we grow as writers by getting both positive and negative comments on our work. At all times keep them respectful. You don't have to take a critical lengthy review approach when commenting on others poetry. You might just want to comment on the way the poem struck you, what you liked about a poem, or what threw you off about a poem. Maybe you can quote part of the poem and why you liked that verse. You don't have to write a book; just a few comments can really help someone know what works and what doesn't. Remember to be tactful and never disrespect the writer. Poets are sensitive souls and they take their poetry to heart. There is a wrong way and right way to say everything. You can offer constructive criticism where the poet is going to learn from it without being disrespectful and never mock your fellow poet.
Here is an example: You just read a poem and all you can find are reasons why the poem that you just read sucks. Maybe they had a number of spelling, grammar mistakes and run on sentences. Instead of commenting on only the bad parts of the poem start out by pointing out a good point. For instance you could say I think you've done a really fine job at expressing your emotions. I do believe that your poem could use some work on the structure to make it complete. I noticed a few spelling and grammar mistakes. I really think this is a good attempt and if you are looking for a more in depth critique I would be happy to work with you to tighten up the poem.
How to not give a critique.
Never critique the author, critique the poem. Never change the poem and put it in your own words. When you do this it no longer becomes the poet's thoughts. Never think that you are an expert in your field. All poets have room for improvement. Never look at another poet as a failure, keep in mind just as movies not every poem will appeal to you. Don't point out every line in the poem that needs work. You should save that for a more in depth critique if the poet desires it. Don't come off as an arrogant critic that is not the way to help people or win friends in the writing business.
Critique is important to all poets. However if you feel that you are a poet expert with no room for improvement yourself than maybe you should stay away from critique groups and just look at your own writing because your really not helping anyone.
About the Author Rose DesRochers, Canada admin@todays-woman.net http://www.todays-woman.net Rose is a published author and web columnist. She is also the founder of Today's Woman a supportive online community for men and women over 18. Their goal is to help writers succeed in the writing industry by offering a useful selection of services including author interviews, regular columns, interactive forums, and a place to share your writing for critique by your peers.
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Poetry-35

2008-01-09T03:11:00.001-05:00
Christians, the Minority

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Feature Article

Christians, the Minority
Author: Joyce C. Lock
It was published that the Christian Community is taking over the net.
I thought, "Yes! It's about time they noticed!"

But, sadly, another report came. It read that Christians have used the Internet to, single-handedly, restore the love for poetry. But, it has not reached the lost world.

Perhaps, the Christian Community became the minority because of our own doing. We were called to be in the world, without being like the world, to be a testimony in the midst of them not to separate from opportunity to minister to the world (Philippians 2:15); except in the event of an evil we need to, personally, get away from. How can they, otherwise, hear?

Scripture makes reference to sowing beside all waters, Isaiah 32:20.

A way that applies, for writers, is to submit our original writings to whomever is interested (the highways and hedges of the Internet), with the exception of x-rated sites. The only reason for eliminating those is because writings would be perverted, wherein God would not get the glory. Though, we can still sow beside those waters, without going inside.

One way writers can compel others, via the Internet, is to include a link to more of their writings; which will draw some to where they can further be ministered. Utilizing your talents, you might have other ideas.

There is neither Jew or Greek, bond or free ... red, yellow, black or white ... Protestant, Catholic, Indian, Hindu ... we are all trying to find our way to God. All things were created by Him and for Him. Our God is the God of the corn, the wheat, and the rain; the one in whom all things consist. But, Jesus was an anti-religionist. He went directly to the source because, THERE IS ONLY ONE GOD.

Regardless of what another faith believes (if our writings do not create offense), we can cross religious barriers to submit writings to them; until we all grow into a unity of faith. Likewise, we can share their non-offensive writings, because (however we serve) it is still the same God. No one religion has all the answers. If we separate from everything not like us, we lose opportunity to learn from other faiths, also.

We stand sure on what God has revealed to us, unwavering. Though, if we keep an open mind, we just might discover that there is more to God than any of us has, yet, considered.

Proverbs 8:31 refers to our freedom in the inhabitable part of the earth. If a website offers Halloween stationery, it is my conviction to not download those. But, if you want to be legal about it and dismiss the rest of their wonderful creations, you will miss a blessing. God created all things. The part that can be used as a testimony to Him, we are free use.

However, there was an occasion wherein I was even able to use an OE skeleton stationery, as it fit a writing against the hazards of drinking. We limit God when we tell Him what He believes before we hear it from Him. There is a habitable part.

Early Christians did not want to give up their festive traditions. Thus, those that could be turned into a blessing for God were adapted, converting to Christian Holidays.

We still have that option, today. Whatever Satan meant for evil, God can use for good. If we do not see the connection of how to use evil for good, we are free to move on. In such case, we either are not listening or God may not be calling us to it. But, if we see the connection, we are free to walk in the Spirit; following Christ.

Being not everyone is a writer, your opportunities may be different. We are not all called and gifted in the same way or to the same things. But, to keep an open mind until we have heard from God, our ministry can reach more for the Lord. That is the key.

"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it:
except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."

Psalm 127:1

~ Immortality ~

Long after we're dead,

Long after we're gone,

Through others, we pray,

May Our Seed Live On!

~ * ~

If you want to build a ministry that will withstand the Gates of Hell,
Seek the Master Builder.

© by Joyce C. Lock
http://our.homewithgod.com/heavenlyinspirations/
This writing may be used in its entirety, with credits in tact,
for non-profit ministering purposes.
About the Author
Joyce C. Lock is a published author, poet, and columnist. In addition, she founded and maintains the e-mail ministries "Heavenly Inspirations" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HeavenlyInspirations/ and "Share a Smile" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smilesharing/. Joyce's writings encourage us in our relationship with God and each other.
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Poetry-34

2008-01-08T03:10:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Imagination
Author: Debbie Long
Have you ever sat and watch a child struggle with a blank page? Have you ever wondered why some children just seem to detest anything to do with writing? Have you seem them just give up in frustration and walk away angry and distraught? Well you are not alone. Every one possesses the capability to write stories, plays, poems or journal writings. There is something that belongs to you and nobody else something that you can always keep a secret. There is something so special that it is priceless, and yet it costs you nothing. This is something that can never be taken away from you, but is yours to share with as many people as you choose. This is something you can keep for a lifetime and use anytime. Do you know what it is? Do you give up? This is your imagination.

Poets and artisans of ancient Greece attributed their inspiration to playful whispers from Muses. Eventually, they recognized the mystic murmurings to be their own imaginations. Einstein claimed that imagination was more important than knowledge. Knowledge was limited, he said, whereas imagination could "embrace the entire world stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

As co-author of a literacy program in Ontario, 'The Muse Program' Debbie has had a unique opportunity to observe children at work and see the methods that work best. The hesitation comes for some as they sit facing a blank page. Even with a vivid imagination, without the tools to utilize it, it becomes a stumbling block for many children.

Debbie has peppered her books with practical questions easily understood by children of any background. Their answers to those leading questions will provide a strong basis for a story. There is a broad comfort zone, because she leads them through familiar territory so that they can write about what they know best.

Using techniques she has developed with her own children to stretch their imaginations and her artistic background, she is able to conjure up images in their minds that are more easily transformed into words on that intimidating blank page.

The first in the series, 'Short Stories with Imagination' is designed to encourage the use of imagination and to help foster a child's self-image, opening up a whole new world to explore. Based on real-life childhood memories, these stories promote the idea that anything is possible. With a little help from our imaginations, an ordinary day can become one filled with adventure sailing with pirates, running a race, or experiencing the thrill of a plane ride for the first time.

'Storybuilding with Imagination', the second in the Imagination Series, uses the proven techniques Debbie has developed and helps walk the child through the general principals of story writing. Following her lead helps the child untangle the confusing trail of mazes, and feel the pride of a job well done. 'Storybuilding with Imagination' is written simply, visually and interactively, so that children can follow along, regardless of reading and writing capabilities.

Kid's Writing Place could be called an Internet learning room where children are mused and/or become the muse to others, helping to spark children's imaginations and promote writing skills. Encouraging the use of imagination helps a child build strength and courage, thus fostering a child's self-image. At Kid's Writing Place, children that are intimidated by that blank page can come and get story beginning ideas, or those that are full of ideas but just can't seem to finish the ending can get help with their ideas. Those that are well on their way to becoming the next generation of authors can have their work read and critiqued by others. This not only enhances skill improvement but promotes interaction between others.

The goals of Kid's Writing Place are to Foster Literacy through the Imagination. This is achieved through the interaction, cooperation and brainstorming of the children working together and learning how to build on their ideas. This on-line forum was inspired by a writer's fascination with the ability to motivate the creative process within children using their imagination. Visit www.designsbydebbie.ca/kidswritingplace and join in the fun of letting your own imagination soar and be amazed at the places that it can take you.

"The kids of today are our future,' says Designs by Debbie founder, "I believe that we are all capable of helping to improve our children's futures, starting with their own imaginations."

About the Author
Debbie Long is a writer/illustrator and founding member of 'The Muse Program', a literacy program for children. She has currently published her first children's book, in the Imagination Series, 'Short Stories with Imagination. The second is due to be released July 2005. For more details visit http://www.designsbydebbe.ca
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Poetry-33

2008-01-07T03:07:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Kids: Channeling Mania Towards Productivity
Author: Kate Hufstetler
More and more kids these days are diagnosed ADD, ADHD, or Bipolar. There are biological reasons for this, and there are environmental elements which can soothe or aggravate the symptoms. It becomes increasingly easy to "react" to each mood swing rather than to develop a plan for different positions on the pendulum swing. Yet, preplanning is the best chance at teaching our children coping skills that will serve them throughout life. A child will learn better during a manic or hyper stateif the parent is able to stay strong and kick into a preplanned directed goal.

Some of the most creative, successful people in the world's history are bipolar. (one small list of such people can be found at: http://www.bipolarsurvivor.com/famous.html ) There have been rulers of countries with it, artists, authors, astronauts, musicians, ball players, financiers. The goal of parenting is to help assist our children to learn the coping skill that they will need to be successful at their level in the world around them as adults. Your child may choose to be the next Nobel Prize winner, Secretary General of the United Nations, or they actually may just have similar goals on an equally grand scale.

Keep in mind that adults, who are clinically required medicine to help curb the mania, often go off their meds because they enjoy the added energy and creativity. They like feeling euphoria, accomplishment, and a higher sense of capability and esteem. Yet un-channeled, that high energy can run rampant, and create a wake of problems left behind them which will increase the slower, depression side of the mood cycle.

When our children are young, we can take the time to help them identify these moods and teach them subtly-- some ways to harness that energy, and utilize it in appropriate ways that still align with their desires. The following suggestions are modifications from the book The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child by Judith Lederman and Candida Fink, M.D. These suggestions work well in the state where creativity & thinking out of the box is identifiable. This is not intended to treat other phases of mania such as rage, or extreme irritability & negativity.

1) Listen and Learn. Pick up on cues and subtle comments that can help you understand you child's interest at the time. Ask questions about her desires and thoughts regarding hopes, dreams, goals, wishes. Use this time to bond and grow closer to the inner part of you child that is revealing itself.

2) Encourage participation in those desires in a physical way now (right now) if possible. Writing poetry or a mini-noveleven a script for a tv show, drawing, picking up and instrument and trying it, shooting photographs, making a video, painting and decorating his bedroom, sending a letter to the President of the United States, etc.

3) Ground the child in reality of the situation & current needs. When she has to do something RIGHT now, calmly and detached state in few words what needs to take place. Also validate her desires by adding "it would be nice to do that someday". You may even want to converse further about that impulsive desireagain: listen and learn, while helping her attend to the responsibilities of the situation at hand.

4) Meet some of the desire while lowering the intensity for her. If he just has to go to a professional ball game (now!), try going through his card collection to see which players and positions he is most interested in. OR get on the computer and begin a card collection for himlet him help pick out the cards and teams. Have someone in the family take 20-60 minutes out to play that sport with him now. After energy has been released, maybe go to blockbuster and get a video where that sport is the theme.

The process to help a child deal with STRONG impulses is time consuming. Two points of reality are:

a) There really isn't any way around the time consumption. Whether we deal with the desires head on or waste time arguing and trying to shift our children to something else "more reasonable", the time expended will be relatively equal.

b) We are giving them life long skills that may save them years of frustration: by taking the time to encourage our children to think creatively, stay with a theme of desire while channeling it reasonably. And this is one of our heart's desires ? .

Until next timeall the best,
Kate

About the Author
Kate Hufstetler is a well established Personal Life Coach. Her clients come from both the United States and overseas. She offers coaching services via email and phone consultations. For more information and current highlights please visit: http://www.comedreamwithme.com
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Poetry-32

2008-01-06T03:05:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Backpacks and Bullies. Is Your Child Prepared?
Author: Patricia Gatto
Publishing Guidelines: You are welcome to publish this article in its entirety, electronically, or in print fre.e of charge, as long as you include you include the full byline, hyperlinks, references and Resource Box.

E-mail or courtesy link appreciated when you publish mailto:pgatto@ptd.net
-------------------------------------

Title: Backpacks and Bullies. Is Your Child Prepared?

Author: Patricia Gatto

Copyright 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Category: Parenting/Children's Social Issues

Word Count (including Resource Box and References): 700
-------------------------------------
Backpacks and Bullies. Is Your Child Prepared?
Patricia Gatto ©2004 All Rights Reserved.
Joyful Productions

As the flurry of Back to School activities subside, parents are left to ponder more pressing issues than notebooks, backpacks, and sneakers.

Will my child succeed this year? Will his academic and social growth meet my hopes and expectations? Have I done everything I can to make this possible?

If you haven't prepared your child for the school bully, not only could your dreams and aspirations end in failure, but your child could fall victim to the violence, and suffer long-lasting repercussions.

Make no mistake; bullying is a form of violence. Experts estimate that almost 75% of today's youth will be involved in some aspect of bullying before they enter high school. And chances are, your child will be among the statistics.

Humiliation, fear, anxiety and depression are the constant companions of a child that is bullied. It can lead to harmful, shocking and unexpected behavior from an otherwise shy or timid child.

Victims feel ashamed and tend to view themselves as failures. They are more prone to stress related illnesses such as headaches and stomachaches. In extreme cases, the victim of a bully can experience sever depression and entertain thoughts of suicide.

Lack of safety is one of the top concerns of young people, and bullying is a real and constant threat. A child's emotional development is just as important, if not more so, than academic development. In fact, a safe, health, emotional environment is essential to academic growth and success.

How do you prepare your child for the school bully?

Become involved and make certain your school has active anti-bullying policies in place. Disciplinary guidelines, procedures for investigating and reporting incidences of bullying, adequate supervision, and an immediate plan of action to address reports of bullying are key elements to a successful program.

Teach your child to walk tall and proud and to maintain eye contact. Portraying a positive, self-confident stature will help your child cope in many areas.

Be certain to compliment your child and gently encourage changes that will bolster self-esteem. Use positive words that valid his or her rights as a person.

Use role-playing techniques to illustrate proper responses to negative situations. This will build strength and courage and provide your child with valuable emotional resources to pull from in times of trouble.

Help your child to identify role models, from sports heroes to everyday man. Discuss the obstacles and accomplishments they endured, focusing on the resilient human spirit.

Read stories together that inspire. Discuss how strength of character and perseverance can achieve a positive outcome without resorting to violence or force.

Encourage your child to keep a diary or journal, write poetry or songs. Writing provides a safe outlet for your child and creativity and self-expression are helpful tools used to work through negative issues.

If you child has difficulties making or maintaining friends, intervene - friendships are a protection against bullying. Identify children that might have things in common with your child and arrange a visit.

Encourage your child to join activities both in and out of school that will result in friendships while building strength and confidence.

But most important, don't diminish your child's concern over a classmate's taunting and teasing, it could very well lead to damaging repercussions. Instead, prepare your child for the bully by empowering him with confidence and self-esteem through your words, actions and embrace.
-------------------------------------
REFERENCES:
Bonds, Psy.D., Marla, and Stoker, M.S.W., Sally. 2000. Bully Proofing Your School. Logmont, CO: Sopris West.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Take a Stand. Lend a Hand. Stop Bullying Now! [cited June 2004] Available from http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov. NOTE: This campaign is dedicated to reducing and preventing bullying and provides a wealth of information for educators, parents and children.
-------------------------------------

About the Author
Patricia Gatto and John De Angelis are the authors of MILTON'S DILEMMA, the tale of a lonely boy's magical journey to friendship and self-acceptance. As advocates for literacy and children's rights, the authors speak at schools and community events to foster awareness and provide children with a safe and healthy learning environment. For more information, please visit Joyful Productions at http://www.joyfulproductions.com
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Poetry-31

2008-01-05T03:04:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Find Clients By Saying No
Author: Susan Harrow
***Permissions***

You have permission to publish this
article in its entirety electronically, in print, in your
ebook, or on your web site, free of charge as long as no
changes to the content are made and you include my byline,
copyright, and resource box. Please notify me of publication
by sending an email with a copy of your publication to:
mailto:newslettereditor@prsecrets.com Thanks!

===Article Follows===

Find Clients By Saying No

1. Nourish your secret inner life.

*If we have little idea of what we really want from our
lives, or what a soulful approach might mean, then often the
only entrance we have into soul comes from the ability to
say a firm no to those things we intuit lead to a loss of
vitality....But in the continuous utterance of the no is a
profound faith that the yes will appear....One way to come
to yes is to say no to everything that does not nourish and
entice our secret inner life out into the world.* David
Whyte, *The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of
the Soul in Corporate America.* If you're longing for
something to say yes to other than another pile of
paperwork, this book will help keep your heart in your work-
or get you out of work that doesn't have heart. Order it at:
http://www.amazon.com. Keep in mind what you're trying to
accomplish when you're marketing yourself so you can use
your inner and outer resources most effectively.

2. Say no to whatever doesn't thrill you.

In the course of every week I say no to people who want to
hire me for media coaching or marketing strategies. Not
because I don't think they have something to offer, but
because it doesn't thrill me. Over time, less and less
people who I'm not interested in call me. This week I've
brainstormed with a career counselor on discovering the type
of clients with whom she wants to work. She has extensive
experience in the corporate world with Fortune 500 companies
and is shifting her business to include artists and
entrepreneurs who are thoughtful and passionate people. I
invited her to focus on the qualities of the people she
wants as clients versus their profession. If you're
inclined, start your own list today. She continues to work
on a detailed list and already two new potential clients
called her last week that suit her criteria. To create a
swifter transition from her business background to
attracting a more creative clientele I suggested she offer
her services free to her artsy friends.

3. Say yes to the clients you want.

By actually having the experience she wants right now she is
saying *yes* to the type of future clients she desires. If
it's media exposure you want call up a friend to act as a
reporter and interview you. If you want an article to appear
about you mock up a few points and paste it in that specific
publication. Put it up on your bulletin board where you can
see it daily. If it's more clients you need then find some
friends who fit the bill and give them some of your
expertise. To further your knowledge C.J. Hayden's book *Get
Clients Now!* will help you get things moving. You can order
an autographed copy at http://www.GetClientsNow.com. C.J.
also has a newsletter packed with ideas.

4. Discover the secret of saying yes to a happy life in
three words.

The best way I've ever heard to say no to what you don't
want and yes to what you do is this: An American journalist
asked Gandhi, *Can you tell me the secret of your life in
three words?* *Yes,* said Gandhi with a twinkle. *Renounce
and enjoy.*

My agent Patti Breitman and her co-author Connie Hatch,
(also two wonderful clients of mine) penned *How to Say No
Without Feeling Guilty and Say Yes to More Time, More Joy,
and What Matters Most to You.* Called *An ultimate tool kit
for reclaiming your time without hurting feelings,* this is
one book you will want to say *yes* to. Order it at your
local bookstore or through http://www.amazon.com. I took the
class and learned techniques I use on a daily basis in my
work and personal life. I keep a few of those phrases taped
to my computer. Invaluable!

Learn more about getting good press and self-promotion to
gain publicity for your business, product or cause in *Sell
Yourself Without Selling Your Soul*(HarperCollins). Go to
http://www.prsecrets.com for your free excerpts today.

Copyright (c) 2002-2005 Susan Harrow, All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Susan Harrow, CEO of PRSecrets.com and BookedOnOprah.com,
is a top media coach, marketing strategist and
author of *Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul*
(HarperCollins), *The Ultimate Guide to Getting Booked on
Oprah*, and *How You Can Get a 6-Figure Book Advance.*
Clients include CEOs, bestselling
authors and entrepreneurs who have appeared on
Oprah,60 Minutes,NPR,and in TIME, USA Today,Parade,
People,O,NY Times,WSJ,and Inc.
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Poetry-30

2008-01-04T03:00:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

Benefits of E-Publishing
Author: Pawan Bangar,Birbals,India
E-PUBLISHING BENEFITS WRITERS AND ARTISTS

Just like all other aspects of life, the digital revolution has taken on the world of publishing also. With digital publishing coming to the fore, the publishing world has undergone several fundamental changes. Earlier, publishing was strictly related to paper. However, now paperless publishing or electronic publishing is gaining more prominence. Electronic publishing or 'e-publishing in which books, journals and magazine are being produced and stored electronically rather than in print. These publications have all qualities of the normal publishing like the use of colours, graphics, and images and are much convenient also. Electronic publishing empowers all writers in way that no technology has ever done before. Whatever you write--- fiction, poetry, news, how-to books or business documents--- there are exciting things happening that will directly effect how you write and distribute work.

The digital revolution has not just benefit writers alone, but has also revolutionized the works of the artists, photographers, and other creative person. There are already hundreds of thousands of books and journals published in the digital format and their number is rising every day. People are looking at electronic publishing optimistically as it is going to play a pivotal role in the modern world of e-commerce. Electronic publications may be produced in a variety of formats, including online, on the disk or CD-ROM, as a fire that can be downloaded or transmitted via e-mail or as a file that that can be downloaded to a hand-held electronic reader or a similar device. Many e-publishers offer books in several of these formats. E-publishers produce and distribute new books, which are appearing for the first time and many only appear in electronic formats (though some may also be produced in a "books on demand" format as well).

Thus, e-publishing does not include the following type of electronic books production: providing electronic text versions of previously published works (such as classic literature, non-copyrighted material, or works that have entered the public domain), either online or on CD-ROM, offering on an electronic version of a book that is simultaneously being produced on print. In this case, the book would be considered a print publication, and the electronic edition would be considered a subsidiary form of publication. Electronic publishing is relatively a new concept, but offer a lot of opportunity to creative person, both for self-employment and regular jobs. The best part of this career is that since, every-thing has to be done on compute; those telecommuting can also pursue this career. These are many publishers, sites, and news wires, who want people to work from their home. The demand for such person in electronic publishing is more in B2V (business to business) portals where there are good revenues also.

As per a report, online services are worth $ 1053 million of the$ 8.1 billion business-to= business sector total and continue to expand. Therefore there lie many opportunities in a new media career within the business- to business arena with tremendous opportunities for growth. Moreover since the revenues from internet advertising are also on rise especially in the B2b sector, self employment in electronic publishing may also prove beneficial. According to the US bureau of labour 'statistics' occupational outlook hand-book 'employment of desktop/ electronic publishing specialist is expected to grow average". In fact, the outlook lists desktop publishing specialist as one of the 10 fasted growing occupations in the nation, with a 73 percent increase in the number of positions expected between 1998 to2008.

Contrary to other popular career for pursuing career in electronic publishing, you do not need any special degree or certificate as this career is absolutely based on a person's own capabilities. But, degree or diploma in journalism or creative writing or a degree or diploma in web publishing can offer a decent platform to launch career in electronic publishing. However, if you wish to have that cutting edge in this career there are several courses available abroad both full-time and through distance learning for pursuing a career in electronic publishing.

There are many courses available on this fast track career, which can offer good opportunities in the field of electronic publishing. However for existing professionals in the field of electronic publishing, the career opportunities are even brighter as you can do a lot of work on freelance basic. There are many portals, which invite people to write the reviews of the services and product and mostly the professionals in electronic publishing deal with this job. Further, since conventional publishing involves a lot of money and also infrastructure, thus the professionals in this field would find electronic publishing an exciting opportunity to become publisher themselves as it neither does not involve big costs nor does it require huge infrastructure. Furthermore, there is a death of such professionals in the field of news wires and other online electronic publications all over the world. This concept is fast becoming popular in India also as a lots of online publications are coming in and thus day is not far when this career will also become a prominent career for professionals as will as other creative persons.
About the Author
Pawan Bangar,
Technical Director ,
Birbals,
India
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Poetry-30

2008-01-04T03:00:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Benefits of E-Publishing
Author: Pawan Bangar,Birbals,India
E-PUBLISHING BENEFITS WRITERS AND ARTISTS

Just like all other aspects of life, the digital revolution has taken on the world of publishing also. With digital publishing coming to the fore, the publishing world has undergone several fundamental changes. Earlier, publishing was strictly related to paper. However, now paperless publishing or electronic publishing is gaining more prominence. Electronic publishing or 'e-publishing in which books, journals and magazine are being produced and stored electronically rather than in print. These publications have all qualities of the normal publishing like the use of colours, graphics, and images and are much convenient also. Electronic publishing empowers all writers in way that no technology has ever done before. Whatever you write--- fiction, poetry, news, how-to books or business documents--- there are exciting things happening that will directly effect how you write and distribute work.

The digital revolution has not just benefit writers alone, but has also revolutionized the works of the artists, photographers, and other creative person. There are already hundreds of thousands of books and journals published in the digital format and their number is rising every day. People are looking at electronic publishing optimistically as it is going to play a pivotal role in the modern world of e-commerce. Electronic publications may be produced in a variety of formats, including online, on the disk or CD-ROM, as a fire that can be downloaded or transmitted via e-mail or as a file that that can be downloaded to a hand-held electronic reader or a similar device. Many e-publishers offer books in several of these formats. E-publishers produce and distribute new books, which are appearing for the first time and many only appear in electronic formats (though some may also be produced in a "books on demand" format as well).

Thus, e-publishing does not include the following type of electronic books production: providing electronic text versions of previously published works (such as classic literature, non-copyrighted material, or works that have entered the public domain), either online or on CD-ROM, offering on an electronic version of a book that is simultaneously being produced on print. In this case, the book would be considered a print publication, and the electronic edition would be considered a subsidiary form of publication. Electronic publishing is relatively a new concept, but offer a lot of opportunity to creative person, both for self-employment and regular jobs. The best part of this career is that since, every-thing has to be done on compute; those telecommuting can also pursue this career. These are many publishers, sites, and news wires, who want people to work from their home. The demand for such person in electronic publishing is more in B2V (business to business) portals where there are good revenues also.

As per a report, online services are worth $ 1053 million of the$ 8.1 billion business-to= business sector total and continue to expand. Therefore there lie many opportunities in a new media career within the business- to business arena with tremendous opportunities for growth. Moreover since the revenues from internet advertising are also on rise especially in the B2b sector, self employment in electronic publishing may also prove beneficial. According to the US bureau of labour 'statistics' occupational outlook hand-book 'employment of desktop/ electronic publishing specialist is expected to grow average". In fact, the outlook lists desktop publishing specialist as one of the 10 fasted growing occupations in the nation, with a 73 percent increase in the number of positions expected between 1998 to2008.

Contrary to other popular career for pursuing career in electronic publishing, you do not need any special degree or certificate as this career is absolutely based on a person's own capabilities. But, degree or diploma in journalism or creative writing or a degree or diploma in web publishing can offer a decent platform to launch career in electronic publishing. However, if you wish to have that cutting edge in this career there are several courses available abroad both full-time and through distance learning for pursuing a career in electronic publishing.

There are many courses available on this fast track career, which can offer good opportunities in the field of electronic publishing. However for existing professionals in the field of electronic publishing, the career opportunities are even brighter as you can do a lot of work on freelance basic. There are many portals, which invite people to write the reviews of the services and product and mostly the professionals in electronic publishing deal with this job. Further, since conventional publishing involves a lot of money and also infrastructure, thus the professionals in this field would find electronic publishing an exciting opportunity to become publisher themselves as it neither does not involve big costs nor does it require huge infrastructure. Furthermore, there is a death of such professionals in the field of news wires and other online electronic publications all over the world. This concept is fast becoming popular in India also as a lots of online publications are coming in and thus day is not far when this career will also become a prominent career for professionals as will as other creative persons.
About the Author
Pawan Bangar,
Technical Director ,
Birbals,
India
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Poetry-3

2008-01-03T02:59:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

How to Get Reluctant Kids to Write
Author: Miriam Darnell
Being a gifted/learning-disabled child has afforded me the unexpected privilege of discovering new regions of my brain that few have ever explored. Because of this, I've come to look at things upside down and backwards. This tendency comes in handy while teaching Language Arts at the Brideun School for Exceptional children. Brideun kids are unique learners who have blockages in their input or output capabilities. Our job as teachers at Brideun is to find alternative pathways in order to get to the same knowledge destination.

Creative writing is my favorite thing to do and my favorite thing to teach. And it was my favorite activity when I was a young child too, though god only knows why. I was a terrible speller. I couldn't sequence to save my life, and with my poor memory, I tended to lose track of where my story was supposed to be going. On top of this, my teachers dwelled endlessly on the importance of good grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and how to spot a verb, but never taught me how to tell a good story that would keep my audience interested. I was never taught how exciting the written word can be when presented in a thoughtful way.

My greatest barrier of all was that I was a poor reader to boot, so I couldn't learn by the example of other authors either.

Writing for me was feeling around in the dark with no guidance, other than how to put properly spelled words in a proper order on paper and make sure the periods were in the right places. I couldn't make my readers care about what it was that my words were saying. I had incredible stories with realistic characters going on in my head all the time, but no idea how to make them real on paper how to make other people see what I saw in my mind's eye.

Despite all of these disadvantages, I continued to write for my own pleasure all through my school years. No thanks to some of my Language Arts teachers, who, if I hadn't had such an internal drive to write, would have quickly driven all interest in writing out of me in the first year, with their aimless rantings about proper grammar. I learned my grammar all right, which came in quite handy when writing technical papers, but until just recently, I didn't know how to put two words together that had an emotional effect on my readers. How could I know? I was never taught this. I was never taught how to create a character that other people could relate to, or what elements went in to making an exciting page-turning story. I was never taught that concepts such as foreshadowing, symbolism and metaphor add depth to a story and give it an artistic edge.

A mechanically perfect paper devoid of decent content is nothing but a showcase of surface knowledge.

Now I know these things, but only because I've had adult writing mentors who have instructed me in the concepts. My sheer drive to write has guided me toward finding the help I need.

Most children aren't so lucky as to have an internal drive to write. When they have a writing disability and all they are taught is the horribly dry and seemingly pointless method of mechanically correct writing, they lose their creativity and imagination; they lose the joy of just telling a good story. For some of these kids it becomes mind-numbing just to lift a pen.

I'm not saying that grammar and spelling aren't important. Of course they are, but writing, just like math or science, has to be taught with the application of the skill being just as important as the skill itself.

At the Brideun School, I teach creative writing backwards, the way I wish it had been taught to me. Backwards, meaning the application of the skill before the perfection of the skill.

In ancient times, stories weren't written down at all. Spelling and grammar didn't exist. What was important was the story itself. The characters, the plot, the setting, the drama with which the story was relayed to a captive audience. In my family, Sunday nights were reserved for read-aloud. My mother read to the family from a cherished novel, and we were carried away by the amazing fantasy worlds that unfolded for us. I was always so surprised by how different the experience was for me when Mom finished a book and I loved it so much that I read it again to myself. It never sounded or looked the same. The process of decoding words on paper when reading a story can diminish the narrative in so many ways. Just as focusing on mechanics in writing, especially in the first draft, can cause a writer to lose sight of the story and the characters the things that matter most.

So, to get back to the roots, the essence of the story and the character - the things that matter the most to kids - I have created a game. I call it Legends of Druidawn, based on a science fiction/fantasy world developed by my writing club kids. The game is so different from the typical process of writing that kids are used to trudging through in school, that they don't even know I've tricked them into writing. The interaction and sheer fun of the game is a wonderful disguise. It frees them from the mechanics of putting words on paper and allows them to create the stories that live in their imaginations a place where words are heard and scenes are visualized, but little is actually written at first.

If you have ever played a fantasy role-playing game or watched others as they've played one, you've got the basic idea. All you need is an imagination, some paper and some dice. You don't need to use fantasy or science fiction as the backdrop, but one of the reasons it is so effective is that the kids love it and respond to it so readily. Magic, dragons and spaceships capture their imaginations and this is especially true for boys.

In our game, we start with a character sheet. A very long, detailed character sheet, where the only thing the kids have to do is fill in the blanks. But the questions proposed on the sheet cause young writers to think about their characters on a much deeper level than what they're used to. They can't play the game until they have a fully fleshed-out person on paper who grabs them emotionally. Next we start the story. The story is presented in a completely verbal, interactive format. The game leader, or Legend Guardian, places the newly made characters into an imaginary setting, with a plot already planned.

The setting is described in great detail, as settings should be, and then the conflict, the goal, and the reward for achieving the goal are all presented to the players. The players then set off on an imaginary adventure, led by the Legend Guardian, during which time they fight monsters, find treasures, discover new places and struggle for their lives against many obstacles. Finally the ending comes when the players achieve their goal and win the reward. This game is played with nothing but paper and dice.

I find that when I start this game, kids who were tense in the beginning when they learned that they would be doing creative writing, are now happy, relaxed, and more than a little fired up. The pressure is off. This is fun!

The game part offers students a setting and a plot to use in their stories if they don't have any ideas of their own of what to write. But it is also a great lure. They don't realize that they already have been writing a story just by playing the game. The only thing they haven't done is translate it into words on paper.

Now here's the catch. The only way their characters can move up levels in the game is to put words on paper. Words are like money. They're very valuable. The more they use, the stronger their characters become. Kids understand the process of moving up levels. It's the basis of every video game they play. This is something they're quite familiar with. I'm not particular about what words they use at first. And I never check their spelling or grammar. The only rule is that whatever they're writing has to be something they're willing to read aloud (maybe just to me, or maybe to the group). Kids won't write nonsense if they have to read it aloud. They'll write stories or poetry that matter to them. They'll also hear the flaws in their own work as they read it verbally. It will bother them enough that they'll want to improve the words so they sound better. And THAT'S where the mechanics come into play. Much later, in the second or third draft of their story at a time when they've come to care about the words that are on their paper. When they want it to not only sound good but look good as well. That's when I teach the more advanced writing technique concepts to show them that there are millions of ways to manipulate words to get exactly what you want out of them. I like to show them how many fun ways there are to add depth to their work so that others will cherish the stories that they write.

The only way you can get children to care about written mechanics (unless they're natural writers who are self-driven) is to get them to care about the stories they've created first. Writing is an emotional process. If you're not emotionally attached to your characters and your story, you're certainly not going to care if it looks good on paper or not.

To summarize, the whole point of the game is to get kids to start thinking about characters they like and putting them in settings that are important to them. To motivate them, the volume of words written is the key to moving those characters up levels. Children will care more about these words because they have to write something they'd be proud to read aloud. The editing and mechanics come in later once they're hooked enough on their stories to seek out ways to perfect them. Finally, if they're really into learning all they can, they are taught the art form of writing (adding symbolism and metaphor to give the words depth and meaning), but not all kids will make it to this stage. Only the real writers will, which is how it should be anyway. Just like only the real mathematicians will make it to quantum mechanics.

It's teaching writing backwards. But it works to turn non-writers into writers like nothing else out there.

About the Author
Miriam has been teaching creative writing for over 20 years, often to students who hate writing. She has developed many unique and valuable techniques that work to motivate students to write more original content than they ever have.
Visit: http://creative-writing-solutions.com Creative Writing Solutions website for more information.
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Poetry-29

2008-01-02T02:58:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

I Want to Do an Ezine! Part 3 What is Content?
Author: Terri Seymour
I Want to Do an Ezine! Part 3 What is Content?
Copyright Terri Seymour

When you publish an ezine, you most definitely want to
provide useful, and original content as well as promoting
your business. Some things you might want to include:

*Original Articles/Guest Articles - If you are not
writing your own articles, please try it. Although
guest articles can be very effective, it is always a
good idea to have some original content as well.

There are lots of places to get articles:

Article Announcement Lists:
mailto:aainet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:reprintedarticles-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:aabusiness-subscribe@egroups.com ;
mailto:aageneral-subscribe@egroups.com ;
mailto:articles_archives-subscribe@egroups.com ;
mailto:QC_Reprint_Articles-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:ap-shorts-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:article_announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:articles4you2use4promotion-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:articlesubmission-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:Free-Content-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;
mailto:Free-Reprint-Articles-subscribe@yahoogroups.com ;

Article Directories:
http://OpportunityUpdate.com/articles/ http://amazines.com/
http://ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://marketing-of-training.com/motoarticles.htm
http://www.womans-net.com/submit.php
http://www.MakingProfit.com
http://www.articlecentral.com/suggest.asp
http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
http://www.bestparentingresources.com/Article.html
http://www.boconline.com/sub-art.htm
http://www.businesstoolchest.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://www.connectionteam.com/art.html

You could also ask for article submissions in your
ezine and on your website. Provide a special email
to receive the articles such as:
mailto:ter02@newnorth.net ?subject=articles

*Freebies - downloads, tools, ebooks, and any other
useful Freebie you can find. Freebies can be found all
over as well. Do a search for Free Downloads, Freebies,
Free resources or whatever type of freebie you are
looking for. There are also freebie ezines and email
lists you can subscribe to.

*A Forum for Your Readers - A place where readers can
vent, question, complain, interact, whatever comments
or feedback they might want to send in. This also helps
in starting that all important connection between reader
and publisher.

*Human Interest Items - Inspirational stories or poems,
people helping people, survival stories, whatever you
think your readers might enjoy reading about.

*A Little Fun/Humor - We all need to laugh, so why not
have a little fun with your readers!

Note: I would put the last two items together in one
section because you do not want to get too far off the
subject matter.

*Editorial/Personality - This is where you can let
your readers get to know you so they can begin to
trust you. Talk about interesting news items, things
you have learned or experienced, relate to your readers.
You need to make a connection with your readers. Make
sure your personality shines through in your ezine.
Make your ezine warm, friendly, and inviting while being
informative and helpful.

*Ad Swaps/Ezine Ads - You want to make sure and have
a section for ad swaps. Ad swapping is a great way to
get free advertising as well as making new contacts
and friends! I have a Free Ezine section which I use
for my ad swaps.

To start swapping:
http://www.freezineweb.com/ad-swaps1.html
http://www.ezinelocater.com/
http://www.internetmarketing-success.com/ad-swaps.htm
http://www.topica.com/lists/Ezine-Ad-Swaps

*Thank You Section for Your Readers - Take a small
section for your readers to get some free exposure as
a "Thank You" for subscribing. Appreciate them as they
will appreciate you!

*Resources - Of course you want to provide lots of good
and helpful resources. There are lots of places to find
resources.

Do a search at your favorite search engine. Mine is
http://www.google.com

Join discussion lists - I get numerous resources from
email lists. I just save them all in an email resource
folder.
mailto:digital-women-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:hbj_chat-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:ideasbypost-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Spam - Yes, spam. I have found lots of resources from
spam that I have received. Sometimes the sender has
some useful information to check out. ( Some spam is
just plain junk) You can soon learn to tell the junk spam
from the "might be useful" spam! ;-)

Announcement Lists - Also a good source for resources.
mailto:lists_for_all-subscribe@YahooGroups.com
mailto:Lists-4-u-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:ListYourAds-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:listyourgroups-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:Mail-Lists-Only-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:mailman-subscribe@topica.com
mailto:misterlister-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:netwrite-publish-announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
mailto:New_List_Announcement-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

*Tips & Tricks - Provide shortcuts, helpful hints and
ideas to save your readers time and money! Ask your
subscribers to submit their tips and tricks and use your
own as well.

There are so many things you can have in your ezine!
You will learn to keep your eyes open for useful items
for your ezine. They can pop up anywhere at anytime!
Make it a habit to save useful things you come across
in folders in your email or on your desktop. Keep them
organized so whenever you need them, you can get to
them right away.

Ezine publishing is not hard, but you need to be able
to organize and provide a quality ezine for your readers
to stick with you. Be available to help and support
your readers if/when they need you. This will go a long
way in strengthening the reader/publisher bond!

You will find publishing a quality ezine to be very
rewarding, not only financially, but personally and
emotionally. Good luck with Your Own Ezine! ;-)

In the next part of the series we will cover ezine
promotion. See you next week!

About the Author
*************
Terri Seymour and her husband Terry of
www.seymourproducts.com offer a no cost,
home business opportunity. Apply online.
Resources and more for your home business
available at www.myownezine.com Free ecourse
business-building-ecourse@getresponse.com

****************
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Poetry-28

2008-01-01T02:57:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

Poetry is the universal language of our heart
Author: Rose DesRochers
I have always had my own ideas on what makes a good poem. But who are we really as critiques to start changing how poets should write a poem. When we read a book, do you read through the book pointing out areas, saying to ourselves; "I would have written it this way?"
The same can be said about music. Do we start critiquing music and telling the artist I would have written it this way. Let's face it we have all heard songs and we have said my good gracious; I'm shocked that song made it to the top of the charts. Now back to my original question, so what is good poetry? To me good poetry should make me feel something, to grab me, to make me laugh, or make me cry or to make me happy.
To me good poetry is being able to read a poem and say "Hey that is how I felt". I often say that when reading poems throughout the net. Poetry to me is being able to write my feelings down on paper. When we pick out a card be it for a birthday, wedding, anniversary or new born baby. We pick up the card and read what is inside. We want that card to say just what we feel. Therefore we choose it for the poem inside.
Poetry is something we share that we give to our children and loved ones as our legacy after were gone. Our words will be what lives on. We may never become that published writer or sell a million copies of our book. However somewhere on a piece of paper scribbled will be a poem someone will hold dear. Who knows what meaning your poem will have to someone. My husband once said to me you never know maybe someone has one of your poems hanging on their wall because it means something to them and they printed it out. I never thought of it that way until painter Phil Roberts printed out a poem I wrote from one of his paintings and hung it in his daughter's bedroom.
My children now write because of me. Whenever I write a new poem I ask their advice. You think they would get bored. But no instead they have picked up a pen and started writing. It is not a wonder that I hear compliments like your children express themselves well. I would like to think I had some help in teaching them that through my own poetry. I never gave much thought to how much we do share as family. Poetry gets kids learning. Through my reading they are learning to write. They are learning to express their feelings and become young adults capable of realizing their emotions.
A poet once said a Good Poem Will Give You Goose Bumps! Oh how right you are. Recently a member of my website said "Some people believe that anyone can write a poem because poetry is based on what comes from the heart." It is based on what comes from the heart. Anyone can write a poem because poetry is about feeling. I write with feeling, I read with feeling and I critique with feeling. Anyone can write poetry. They just need to turn those emotions into a poem. The next time someone critiques you on a poetry workshop that your poem was not really good, not enough adjectives, abstractions and too many clichés; well you can tell them what makes a good poem because obviously they don't know.
Who are we to say that poem wasn't any good because we all have our own view of a poem and how it grabs us just like music grabs us .The writing and reading is in the feeling.
So if you are one of those who are asking what makes a poet a poet because some people believe that anyone can write a poem. You are right anyone can write a poem. There are no rules people. Pick up a pen and write from your heart. Poetry is about writing what you see around you or feel within you. If you are releasing your feelings then you are writing poetry. Don't sit and wait for the inspiration to come to you, pick up a pen and write.
Robert Frost said "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." So pick up that pen and express your thoughts through this form of writing we know as poetry. What makes a poet a poet? An inner calling from your heart and soul. It is a need to express emotions. Poetry is everywhere; it is the world around us. In all of us is a poet. Poetry is the universal language of our heart.
About the Author Rose DesRochers, Canada admin@todays-woman.net http://www.todays-woman.net Rose is a published author and web columnist from Canada Ontario and she is also the founder of Today's Woman a community for men and women over 18, where writers/poets/columnists meet and exchange ideas, contest, rate and review and help each other succeed in the writing industry.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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Poetry-28

2008-01-01T02:57:00.001-05:00

Article Page

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Feature Article

Poetry is the universal language of our heart
Author: Rose DesRochers
I have always had my own ideas on what makes a good poem. But who are we really as critiques to start changing how poets should write a poem. When we read a book, do you read through the book pointing out areas, saying to ourselves; "I would have written it this way?"
The same can be said about music. Do we start critiquing music and telling the artist I would have written it this way. Let's face it we have all heard songs and we have said my good gracious; I'm shocked that song made it to the top of the charts. Now back to my original question, so what is good poetry? To me good poetry should make me feel something, to grab me, to make me laugh, or make me cry or to make me happy.
To me good poetry is being able to read a poem and say "Hey that is how I felt". I often say that when reading poems throughout the net. Poetry to me is being able to write my feelings down on paper. When we pick out a card be it for a birthday, wedding, anniversary or new born baby. We pick up the card and read what is inside. We want that card to say just what we feel. Therefore we choose it for the poem inside.
Poetry is something we share that we give to our children and loved ones as our legacy after were gone. Our words will be what lives on. We may never become that published writer or sell a million copies of our book. However somewhere on a piece of paper scribbled will be a poem someone will hold dear. Who knows what meaning your poem will have to someone. My husband once said to me you never know maybe someone has one of your poems hanging on their wall because it means something to them and they printed it out. I never thought of it that way until painter Phil Roberts printed out a poem I wrote from one of his paintings and hung it in his daughter's bedroom.
My children now write because of me. Whenever I write a new poem I ask their advice. You think they would get bored. But no instead they have picked up a pen and started writing. It is not a wonder that I hear compliments like your children express themselves well. I would like to think I had some help in teaching them that through my own poetry. I never gave much thought to how much we do share as family. Poetry gets kids learning. Through my reading they are learning to write. They are learning to express their feelings and become young adults capable of realizing their emotions.
A poet once said a Good Poem Will Give You Goose Bumps! Oh how right you are. Recently a member of my website said "Some people believe that anyone can write a poem because poetry is based on what comes from the heart." It is based on what comes from the heart. Anyone can write a poem because poetry is about feeling. I write with feeling, I read with feeling and I critique with feeling. Anyone can write poetry. They just need to turn those emotions into a poem. The next time someone critiques you on a poetry workshop that your poem was not really good, not enough adjectives, abstractions and too many clichés; well you can tell them what makes a good poem because obviously they don't know.
Who are we to say that poem wasn't any good because we all have our own view of a poem and how it grabs us just like music grabs us .The writing and reading is in the feeling.
So if you are one of those who are asking what makes a poet a poet because some people believe that anyone can write a poem. You are right anyone can write a poem. There are no rules people. Pick up a pen and write from your heart. Poetry is about writing what you see around you or feel within you. If you are releasing your feelings then you are writing poetry. Don't sit and wait for the inspiration to come to you, pick up a pen and write.
Robert Frost said "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." So pick up that pen and express your thoughts through this form of writing we know as poetry. What makes a poet a poet? An inner calling from your heart and soul. It is a need to express emotions. Poetry is everywhere; it is the world around us. In all of us is a poet. Poetry is the universal language of our heart.
About the Author Rose DesRochers, Canada admin@todays-woman.net http://www.todays-woman.net Rose is a published author and web columnist from Canada Ontario and she is also the founder of Today's Woman a community for men and women over 18, where writers/poets/columnists meet and exchange ideas, contest, rate and review and help each other succeed in the writing industry.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
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Poetry-27

2007-12-31T02:56:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

The Bottom Line
Author: Jed McKenna
The Bottom Line

By Jed McKenna

Whadda ya know?

Seriously. With absolute certainty, what do you know?
Put aside all opinions, beliefs and theories for a moment and address this one straight question: What do you know for sure? Or, as Thoreau put it:

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe... through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin..."

In other words, let's cut the crap and figure out what's real. The cogito does exactly that, and it's very simple. The question is: What do you know?

The answer is: I Am.

All other so-called facts are really non-facts and belong in the category of consensual reality and relative truth, i.e., unreal reality and untrue truth.

::: Cogito Ergo Sum

Cogito ergo sum is the equation that proves the fact. But first, before we go on, let's ask what else we know. What else can be said for certain?

Nothing. We don't know anything else. And that's the real point of the cogito. The importance of I Am isn't that it's a fact, but that it's the only fact.

I Am is the only thing anyone has ever known or will ever know. Everything else, all religion and philosophy, is nothing more than dream interpretation. There is no other fact than I Am. The cogito is the seed of the thought that destroys the universe. Beyond the cogito, nothing is known. Beyond the cogito, nothing can be known. Except I Am, no one knows anything. No man or god can claim to know more. No God or array of gods can exist or be imagined that know more than this one thing: I Am.

We can't avoid letting this topic drift briefly into the Christian realm. When Moses asked God His name, God answered, "I am that I am." The name God gives for Himself is I Am.

Note that I Am is unconjugatable. It allows of no variation. God doesn't say, "My name is I Am, but you can call me You Are, or He Is." The cogito, the I Am equation, does not extend beyond one's own subjective knowing. I can say I Am and know it as truth, but I can't say you are, he is, she is, we are, they are, it is, etc. I know I exist and nothing else. Understood thusly, I Am, aka God, truly is the Alpha and the Omega; the entirety of being, of knowledge, of you.

::: The Line Is Drawn

The cogito is the line between fantasy and reality. On one side of the cogito is a universe of beliefs and ideas and theories. To cross the line is to leave all that behind. No theory, concept, belief, opinion or debate can have any possible basis in reality once the ramifications of the cogito have fully saturated the mind. No dialogue can take place across that line because nothing that makes sense on either side makes sense on the other.

We all think we know what the cogito means; this is an invitation to challenge that assumption. If professors of philosophy truly understood it, they wouldn't be professors of philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead said that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato, but all philosophy, Plato included, is rendered obsolete and irrelevant by Descartes. Nothing but the subjective I Am is true, so what's the point of prattling on?

The cogito isn't a mere thought or an idea, it is an ego-eating virus that, properly incubated and nurtured, will eventually devour all illusion. Once we know the cogito, we can begin systematically unknowing everything we thought we knew, and unraveling the self we aren't.

::: Life is but a Dream

There is no such thing as objective reality. Two cannot be proven. Nothing can be shown to exist. Time and space, love and hate, good and evil, cause and effect, are all just ideas. Anyone who says they know anything is really saying they don't know the only thing. The greatest religious and philosophical thoughts and ideas in the history of man contain no more truth than the bleating of sheep. The greatest books are no more authoritative than the greatest luncheon meats.

No one knows anything.

::: Disprove it for Yourself

Anyone wishing to deny these statements about the meaning of the cogito need merely prove that something, anything, is true. By all means, give it a try, dash your head upon it, but it can't be done. Cogito ergo sum, however, isn't the endpoint of inquiry, it's the starting point; it's a tool that helps us see, without intermediaries, exactly what is true and what isn't.

How great is that?

-Jed McKenna

About the Author
::: About the Author

"Jed McKenna is an American original." -Lama Surya Das

Jed McKenna is the author of "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing" and "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment", published by Wisefool Press. Coming in 2005: "Spirituality X" and "Jed McKenna's Notebook". Visit WisefoolPress.com to learn more.
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Poetry-27

2007-12-31T02:56:00.001-05:00

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The Bottom Line
Author: Jed McKenna
The Bottom Line

By Jed McKenna

Whadda ya know?

Seriously. With absolute certainty, what do you know?
Put aside all opinions, beliefs and theories for a moment and address this one straight question: What do you know for sure? Or, as Thoreau put it:

"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe... through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin..."

In other words, let's cut the crap and figure out what's real. The cogito does exactly that, and it's very simple. The question is: What do you know?

The answer is: I Am.

All other so-called facts are really non-facts and belong in the category of consensual reality and relative truth, i.e., unreal reality and untrue truth.

::: Cogito Ergo Sum

Cogito ergo sum is the equation that proves the fact. But first, before we go on, let's ask what else we know. What else can be said for certain?

Nothing. We don't know anything else. And that's the real point of the cogito. The importance of I Am isn't that it's a fact, but that it's the only fact.

I Am is the only thing anyone has ever known or will ever know. Everything else, all religion and philosophy, is nothing more than dream interpretation. There is no other fact than I Am. The cogito is the seed of the thought that destroys the universe. Beyond the cogito, nothing is known. Beyond the cogito, nothing can be known. Except I Am, no one knows anything. No man or god can claim to know more. No God or array of gods can exist or be imagined that know more than this one thing: I Am.

We can't avoid letting this topic drift briefly into the Christian realm. When Moses asked God His name, God answered, "I am that I am." The name God gives for Himself is I Am.

Note that I Am is unconjugatable. It allows of no variation. God doesn't say, "My name is I Am, but you can call me You Are, or He Is." The cogito, the I Am equation, does not extend beyond one's own subjective knowing. I can say I Am and know it as truth, but I can't say you are, he is, she is, we are, they are, it is, etc. I know I exist and nothing else. Understood thusly, I Am, aka God, truly is the Alpha and the Omega; the entirety of being, of knowledge, of you.

::: The Line Is Drawn

The cogito is the line between fantasy and reality. On one side of the cogito is a universe of beliefs and ideas and theories. To cross the line is to leave all that behind. No theory, concept, belief, opinion or debate can have any possible basis in reality once the ramifications of the cogito have fully saturated the mind. No dialogue can take place across that line because nothing that makes sense on either side makes sense on the other.

We all think we know what the cogito means; this is an invitation to challenge that assumption. If professors of philosophy truly understood it, they wouldn't be professors of philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead said that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato, but all philosophy, Plato included, is rendered obsolete and irrelevant by Descartes. Nothing but the subjective I Am is true, so what's the point of prattling on?

The cogito isn't a mere thought or an idea, it is an ego-eating virus that, properly incubated and nurtured, will eventually devour all illusion. Once we know the cogito, we can begin systematically unknowing everything we thought we knew, and unraveling the self we aren't.

::: Life is but a Dream

There is no such thing as objective reality. Two cannot be proven. Nothing can be shown to exist. Time and space, love and hate, good and evil, cause and effect, are all just ideas. Anyone who says they know anything is really saying they don't know the only thing. The greatest religious and philosophical thoughts and ideas in the history of man contain no more truth than the bleating of sheep. The greatest books are no more authoritative than the greatest luncheon meats.

No one knows anything.

::: Disprove it for Yourself

Anyone wishing to deny these statements about the meaning of the cogito need merely prove that something, anything, is true. By all means, give it a try, dash your head upon it, but it can't be done. Cogito ergo sum, however, isn't the endpoint of inquiry, it's the starting point; it's a tool that helps us see, without intermediaries, exactly what is true and what isn't.

How great is that?

-Jed McKenna

About the Author
::: About the Author

"Jed McKenna is an American original." -Lama Surya Das

Jed McKenna is the author of "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing" and "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment", published by Wisefool Press. Coming in 2005: "Spirituality X" and "Jed McKenna's Notebook". Visit WisefoolPress.com to learn more.
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Poetry-26

2007-12-30T02:55:00.001-05:00
8 Tell-Tale Signs That Forecast Writing Success!

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8 Tell-Tale Signs That Forecast Writing Success!
Author: Jennifer Brown Banks

'Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." -Stephen King
Ever wonder what the hands of fate will deal you in the way of success as a writer? Or why some individuals reap the rewards of literary recognition, while others fail and fade into anonymity?
Just as highway signs alert travelers of their impending destination, there are give-away indicators that point to "the road to success" for writers.
Here are checkpoints that reveal you're in the literary fast lane!
You're Playing the Field- The more genres of writing you apply your talents to, the greater the odds of continued publication and pay. I began my journalistic journey over a decade ago, writing poetry and greeting card verse.
What I discovered was that poetry (although my first love), was not very marketable. As a result, these efforts alone met with very little success until I decided to try feature writing for magazines. This change in strategy not only allowed me to establish publishing credits and an impressive portfolio, but also financed the self-publication of 3 volumes of poetry chapbooks and opened avenues for paid performances and open mike competitions as well.
Jennifer Brown Banks- Page 2 8 Tell-Tale Signs
You're an Avid Reader- It is virtually impossible to become a marketable writer without reading and studying prominent writers and various styles of expression. Whether you're a member of a local book club, subscribe to a few on-line publications, or regularly escape through a good Harlequin Romance, you're moving in the right direction! Being an avid reader helps you expand your vocabulary, become familiar with different writing styles, and understand the needs of your audience.
You're Self-Disciplined- Unlike other professions and industries, writing is by and large a do it yourself success story; there is no delegating or getting by on other team members' strength. It's either sink or swim! You establish your own goals, develop your own game plan, and assume sole responsibility for your career. Successful writers go the distance by making writing a priority, honing their craft and persevering through rejection.
You Understand that Writing is a Business- Far too many writers fail to recognize that writing is a business. One that requires much more than creativity and a command of the King's English. To achieve professional status, one must have marketing savvy, time management skills, analytical ability, research knowledge and familiarity with the industry. It also requires putting money back into the "business" by investing in trade related materials such as the Writers' Market, computer equipment and business cards (to name a few things).
Jennifer Brown Banks- Page 3 8 Tell-Tale Signs
You Recognize the Importance of Critiquing- Whether it's through a writers' group, a mentor, a college professor, or people whom you admire and trust. Getting an outside, objective analysis of your work can mean the difference between rejection and perfection. Just as "love is blind," many of us are far too close to what we've created to see flaws or gaps in what we're trying to convey.
You Know the Meaning of Working Smart- At least 50% of my writing income is generated from resales. The well fed writer realizes the potential to resell and represent the same pieces many times over just by changing the slant and minor details, and by negotiating rights.
You're Navigating "the Information Super Highway." Do you Google? Are you able to successfully research, review writers' web sites, and submit work via the Internet? Doing so decreases down time, increases productivity, and puts you in the fast lane to creativity. Check out the following writers' E-zines to enhance your bottom line:
Absolute Write Newsletter- http://www.absolutewrite.com " http://www.absolutewrite.com - This weekly contains articles, interviews and calls for writers.
Inscriptions-http://www.inscriptions.com " http://www.inscriptions.com - Features weekly calls for writers, interviews, book reviews and announcements.
Jennifer Brown Banks- Page 4- 8 Tell-Tale Signs
3. National Association of Women Writers- http://www.naww.org- " http://www.naww.org- Produces a newsletter that provides useful insiders' tips, motivational quotes, contests, conferences and more. It also serves to support and promote the works of female authors.
A great book to also help you improve your surfing savvy is 300 Incredible Things to Do on the Internet by Ken Leebow.
You Write for the Love of It!- Do you practically eat, sleep and drink writing? Love to communicate and connect? In this field, perhaps more so than any other, passion precedes success. Having the desire to educate, entertain and empathize through the written word is indeed a noble ambition. And it is this philosophy that will allow you to persevere and avoid "road rage" in your daily travels!
COPYRIGHT 2004 JENNIFER BROWN BANKS
About The Author
Jennifer Brown Banks is a writer, poet, speaker and literary consultant. Her work is featured monthly as a contributing writer to Being Single magazine. Additionally, she is a high school substitute teacher.
Publishing credits include: Chicago Sun-Times, Being Single Magazine, Funds 4 Writers, Writing for Dollars, Honey Magazine, Today's Chicago Woman, National Association of Women Writers' Weekly, http://Empowermag.com " Empowermag.com , Gospel Synergy and a host of on-line and print publications.
Her upcoming book of poetry "A Paradox in Pink" is due to be released in fall 2004. Banks is listed in Marquis' Who's Who in America.
She may be contacted at
Jennifer Brown Banks
P.O. Box 208821
Chicago, IL 60620-8821
E-mail ...

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Poetry-25

2007-12-29T02:54:00.001-05:00
Eight Poems

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Eight Poems
Author: Dennis Siluk

Out of the eight poems provided here [all previously unpublished], four are Poetic Prose, a few Visionary [what I call Vsionary anyhow], a few Free Verse, and a few with more form and structure, more closely to the Auden style of: stanza, metrical rhythm, and rhyme. In saying that, I do believe all the poems are conveying a rich network of meaning, some of them painfully close bond between pleasure and destruction. They should appeal to the senses and create images in our minds, for poetry is just that kind of language that most complexly and effectively qualifies.
Escape
Let me flee from
My vision, my world
My melancholia
My subjectivity;
My world which is
Now a prison.
I shall change
My poetic harmony
From flesh to spirit
I shall be a
I shall be a poem
Yes, O yes a poem
eternally!...
Moon-Path
As the fire goes out
And the moon comes in!
The flickering skies darken,
Makes a ghostly moon-path
With the moon upon my face
A skull-like grin takes place
I choke the roaring dark,
To save the flickering moon-path.
Life on a Finger
If this is life on a finger
Why do I feel so dead?
Why does my soul whisper?
Life is more than this.
What has my life been plotting?
While the world cringes and reeks
Humanity clinging so tightly
As it hides and silently weeps.
differences
I love fruit
and she loves candy
he loves beer
and she loves brandy
everyone makes such
a fuss
everyone wants
to please
and toothless
and hairless
are most people,
I just want
To leave!...
Prose Poetry
[A view]
Poetic Prose: can be musical, without rhythm or rhyme, and still rugged enough to adjust to the impulses of the soul or conscience; or so I believe, and so saying, here are a few I think may qualify for such a test, four in particular:
First of all, I do not claim to be a critic or scholar of Prose Poetry, but I like writing Prose Poetry when I like to wipe fantasy to the side, for some reason it seems less essential for me during this stage. I'm also allowedor, so it seemsto be a bit more moralistic, in the brief; my imagination can comb my travels more, people morespontaneity is fresher with Prose Poetry for me. I'm even a bit reckless or eminently, or vividly uninsightful in the sense of hanging on toor trying to make a point. Thus, my prose might be called a critical essay, but it is not.
Even Shakespeare tried his version of Blank Verse with Prose. Victor Hugo, whom I visited his house while in Paris one afternoon, and whom is a great poet, as is Baudelairein my eyes, used metrical innovations to create prose, where I use very little. But hope to get the same effect. But I have learned in poetry, and perhaps the hard way, it is what occurs to you, that makes it all worth while, and obviously to the reader, who marks its worth; not what occurs to the other person; we have too much of the copycat crap. So here are a few new, freshly out of the oven poems in prose:
Co merchant Wisdom
[End of a life, cut upsl997]
"to glance at mefine carpets on wallsFish Fly around the roomthe fartwater pillsfuneralsage often keeps quietorder a plate of bratwurstspass out in the vomitoriumwe got old(and he shit in his pants)water pills (ease heart stress)boxer shortswho is God? (he heard his voice once, it sounded like his)Ah war bigness addictionthe poet aging on the stoolLSDMTVJacksonDylanElvisSushiFBI (the poet dies ((l997))Beethovenis about one manGenocideSkeleton" In the beginning:
The Brooklyn Bridge
[3/2000] Prose Poetry
The Brooklyn Bridge: she's on a bike, I'm walking. She screams:
"Get out of my way! Get on your own side! Read the damn Sign!" I say: "Fuck you!" (A pause)
It was a burp (kind of)first words out of my mouth, out of anger. Then I moved slowly to the proper side of the bridge, its street like walk; and enjoyed the rest of the March skies
3/21/05 [#573]
A Tired Kiss
Poetic Prose
A kiss of a tired woman: lips of soapsuds, no lip pressure; tired so long her mind forgot how to tell her lips to form a kiss. Now soapsuds dance on her lips: form bubblesdepart like ships on voyages. Her kiss forms into a flabby kiss then more like a hand-shake. Her husband (firm and frank) no longer looks at them; to him they are like dark-clouds about to rain. At one time her husband said: "You were the best!"
#571 [3/19/05]
Benevolent Furniture
Prose Poetry
I own furniture that dreamyou know, like it has a life of its own; they speak their own language; like everything else that circles the sun.
There is no soul involved though, only some, some awareness, with windows and doors; the cascading of rain and snow; assignment to a certain room, things like that.
I don't know what infuriates them, other than the impudent man. So, idol they remain, each to its own, I suppose; waiting for curiosity or admiration to bloom, anything!...
#578 [3/22/05]
Poems to come:
Girl and the Ox
The Cab
Curse of the Toucan Bird
The Lost Ant
The Baggage Room
Staggering
Dennis Siluk lives in the Midwest with his wife Rosa, and in Lima, Peru where he spends a few months out of the year. He has been writing poetry for over 40-years, and has had his poetry published in a number of newspapers, magaziens,books and in about every corner of the world. In l981, his first book was published, "The Other Door: Poetic Exhortations" now worth several times its original value, as seen recently on Ebay, and abe.books, launched a love afair with poetry. His website is: http;//dennisiluk.tripod.com
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Poetry-24

2007-12-28T02:53:00.001-05:00

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I Drank Tea in December
Author: Arthur Zulu

The two writers laughed aloud as I ended the story. Not that it was the kind of thing that one likes to hear in the morning. Some would quickly go on their knees and pray that the "cup" passes next door. But pray as they might, it is a "cup" that we all must drink from.

By cup, I am not referring to the cups of tea in our hands that we now resumed to enjoy after telling them the story. DD Phil, the romance writer who the ladies like to call Filemon, with a stress on the last syllable, was looking dreamily. Sitting with his right hand supporting his chin, his left on the chair, and the suspended tea cup on the table, one would have thought that he was plotting a scene in his next fantasy novel.

Of course, the story that I was telling them was more fantasy than real. What is real again in this world? For Val K the poet, sitting with all the cares in this worldhis legs wide apart as the poleseverything (and that includes life) is poetry. It is no wonder that someone says, "Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyways."

Whether the story was a comedy or a tragedy is another matter. But it was a story about life. And whether life stories are sweet or bitter is for you to judge. Look at the verdict of these people.

A chief of King Edwin says: "The present life of man is like a sparrow." Apostle James, a Bible writer, calls it "a mist that appears for a while and then disappears."

But the story was more about equivocationsdouble tongues. And is life not a tale of equivocations? So, after I finished the story, we resumed our tea drinking and compared the story with other equivocal tales.

The first to come to mind was King Croesus who went to consult the oracle before embarking on a major military expedition. He was assured that if he went to war, a mighty empire would fall. He believed and went to do battle. But the empire that fell was his!

And then there was Macbeth who was thoroughly deceived by the witches. He didn't think that tress "move" and he never believed that there was any man not "born" of a woman. But he was dead wrong. Equivocation did both people in.

The best of such double tongues, however, was that of the great hinter who was warned that he was to be killed by an animal on a certain day. So the finicky hunter refused to step into the bush on that day. But lying in his room, the head of one the animals that he had killed which he had suspended on a rafter, got loose and landed a death-blow on his head!

When I got the message to proceed to the country with God speed, however, the first thing that came to my mind was not a word that began with letter E. And then the message became more incessant: You must come home in December. I refused the invitation. Yet, my people sent an emissary who spoilt the case for not explaining why I was wanted back home. So I tarried in the city, waiting for the war of the cyclpos.

January 10, 2005. I sat down to read a letter from home. And then came the sentence: "The juju priest who said you will die in December died that very month and has been buried." That was when I knew the reason for the distress call in December. I had been required to come and to make sacrifices to impotent gods to survive December. Pity the "authoritative," "all knowing" juju priest. Didn't know that death is everywhere. Didn't know that he was prophesying his own death. Didn't know that I was enjoying my tea way back in December. Equivocation.

Mohandas Gandhi said: "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you would live forever." That has been my guiding principle. Who is afraid of death? Someone said "the tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." What matters in the end is not how long we live. But "it's the life in your years, said Abraham Lincoln. So the question that we should ask ourselves is, How would I be remembered? Not a few people care if they were remembered for vileness. But even if you were known in your lifetime for some spectacular achievement, it adds to nothing.

If the Bible were a book of epitaphs, the second verse of Ecclesiastes is dear to my heart. It simply states: "The greatest vanity! Everything is vanity!" And that's the dinkum oil.

As we take our tea, with DD Phil and Val K happy that their controversial writer is still alive, the fact remains that we must die of something someday. And if my people supposing I was dead had wept over me and buried my effigy, I will have the singular honor or infamy of being mourned and buried twice.

Yet it is good to be alive.

So even if I were to pass on tomorrow, let it be known that the priest LIED. I drank tea in December.

Arthur Zulu is an editor, book reviewer, and author of Chasing Shadows!, How to Write a Best-seller, A Letter to Noah, and many other works. For his works and FREE help for writers, goto:
http://controversialwriter.tripod.com
Mailto: controversialwriter@yahoo.com
Web search: Arthur Zulu

About the Author
Arthur Zulu is an editor, author, and book reviewer.
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Poetry-23

2007-12-27T02:51:00.001-05:00

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You have to try this, at least, once!
Author: Seamus Dolly

There is a unique freedom of expression that is available with websites/webpages, comparable to none. Text, images, hyperlinks, forms, specialized scripts, counters, clocks, pop-up's and unders, and thousands of other features, can be easily enough manipulated, to present almost anything that you want, to the on-line world. If you like, access can be limited, to the few people, of your choosing that have/or have access to, your URL( uniform remote location, or web address).

Limit it to your family, a membership site, or choose to blast it into cyberspace. The latter requires some techniques or lots of techniques.
Add to it, delete it, change or update it, make money from it, reveal your inner-most thoughts, invent your thoughts, invent your graphics, write poetry, suggest cookery tips, suggest tips to avoid cooking, write an article, write an article on not writing articles, write and give away/sell, a book or e-book, publish a publishing site or publish a blank page, seek out subscribers, inform the public, reform the public, write an article on "not being able to reform the public", write an e-book on "being actually able to reform the public"( possible best seller ), publish a picture of your dog, publish your dog's delightful bark( sound, if any ), tell everyone about "that time", tell everyone that you weren't even there, and finally, suggest to people when they should stop "rambling".

The latter requires some tact.

Anyone with some disposable income, can do any, or all of the above.
The first thing to do is to register a "domain". Relatively cheap and usually a one or two year contract. Choose a name for your site. If its not available (already taken, yes!, there are other people with a similar imagination ), you will be told, whereby, you have the choice to "go again".

Find a "host". Simply put, it is someone else's computer where your files are stored and are available 24/7. Some are free, and almost all are available ( use a search engine ). It may often seem complicated, but if you can read this, then it is within your grasp.

There is some technical jargon but you don't have to take it all in at once. Play around with it instead of "becoming overwhelmed". There is always an e-mail address for support. I suggest trying to figure it out yourself, at least for a while, as this is part of a learning process.

You should by now, have a name/domain, and rented cyber accommodation for your files.
You are then www.yourselectedname.com or more properly http://www.yourselectedname.com , for example. This will be your main page.
DOT COM is in no way essential. Americans can opt for http://www.yourselectedname.us
and Australians can opt for http://www.yourselectedname.au Other examples are .net, .org and lots of others.
N.B. You select this when registering your domain.

A file is anything that you have in a file other than www.yourselectedname.com with the same server.
Example; www.yourselectedname.com/yournamedfile

A WYSIWYG (WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET ) editor, is helpful and is sometimes supplied by your host. All this means is that you can make a webpage in the same way that I initially typed/created this document in Microsoft Word. That is to say, font, colour, spacing, paragraphs, indents, caps, etc, are as you see them ( without the html tags or other coding ).
Anyways, you can get such an editor from other sources, if your host doesn't supply them (search engine, again ).
Free html editors are widespread and some knowledge of this is worth the effort.

You can buy your own products with re-selling rights, meaning that after the initial cost, all of the profits are yours. Digital products are simplest as they are deliverable via the internet (downloadable to the purchaser, almost instantly ). In some countries, electronically deliverable product are tax exempt.

These products include e-books, the main advantage being their deliverability, both from the seller and buyers point of view. These are normally in PDF format due to its cross-platform compatibility ( viewable on Macs and Windows ). The software for creating e-books is widely available, again, some having more security features than others. A virtual book cover to display on your site is easily done and customisable. If you have a topic/report/information of widespread appeal, you are more than half way there. An affiliate program can be set up to sell for you. One particular company will even track your affiliate sales.
In my opinion, this is cheaper that POD (printing on demand), but perhaps lacks traditional literature appeal. Indeed, both are relatively new concepts and both concepts are good.

Selling any of the above "editors", or indeed creating them, if you have experience in that area is done via a website. An affiliate program will boost any sales if your product is "saleable", and of reasonable value.
Imagine it, you might have been through a war, tragedy, illness, abduction by aliens, non abduction by aliens, or just about anything, and people will want to know about it. You are not over the hill, if your memory or imagination is relatively intact. Neither are you below the hill if you are young, assuming you possess one of the aforementioned attributes, let alone, two.
You no longer need to belong to an exclusive or traditionally "tight" club to gain exposure.
A website is REAL MAGIC.
P.S. A platform such as this website is invaluable.

Only your imagination can stop you now.

About the Author
Seamus Dolly is a webmaster and author, with a background in mechanical engineering and analogue electronics.
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Poetry-22

2007-12-26T02:31:00.001-05:00

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COMMUNICATION 101
Author: Dennis Mahagin
There's no question about it: E Mail has arrived. According to a research
group studying technology trends, by the year 2005, one third of all
electronic billing will be carried out via e mail routes; and devices like the
"Blackberry" (a palm-sized, mobile wireless device designed exclusively for
sending and retrieving e mail) will no doubt inevitably be scaled down to
micro-size and incorporated into household appliances and/or items of
clothing-- so that sometime in the not-distant future you will be checking
your Inbox from under a band-aid-sized fanny pack velcro snap, shoe sole, or
the brim of your favorite baseball cap. There are even companies who will now
pay you $$ to read, and send, E Mails!

http://www.zwallet.com/index.html?user=artfor

The E Mail now stands poised to replace the "cold call" as one of the most
widely applicable and effective business tools of the 21st century. Herein
lies the caveat:
Technology such as this forces upon us a new communication style, summed up
below for the purpose of keeping your vital business e mail communications
from being mouse-pulled to the nearest Trash icon by a deluged and
easily-distracted reader. Think of the acronym, T.I.T.E.-- for tight
writing-- to burn these basic principles into your brainpan database.

Some Ballpark rules to ponder:

GET PERSONAL -- Engage back-up e mail accounts for sent-and-received
messages of the FFA (Free For All) Links and Autoresponder variety, freeing up
your main mailbox for "quality time" correspondence, wherein you'll generate
the bulk of your bona fide, "personal" contacts, two or three of which will
be worth way more, over the long haul, than a hundred anonymous, automated
hits that are divorced from your direct influence and mean very little outside
a multi-level-marketing (MLM) context, which of course has its place but is
handled by robots and, by default ! , is outside the scope of this discussion.
Which leads us right into:

BAD FORM -- If your message, sent by human - to human, reeks even remotely
of a form letter, odds are it will be discarded, half-read or ignored
completely, unless you're giving away autographed copies of Elvis Presley's
last prescription refill !
Use templates and macros to ease the process of multiple mailings, but try as
best you can to "personalize" each message, (especially as concerns the Title
and Body of the e mail) and those few minutes of extra work will pay off huge
dividends. Nothing turns a reader off more than the stale tone and
"voicemail-menu-cold" qualities
of a form letter.

USE WHITE SPACE -- Break up your message with liberal usage of the
spacebar, both horizontally and vertically, i.e.-- between sentences like
this; and between paragraphs

like this. It's just easier on overworked eyes period . Now for the main
course of study :

1. [ T ] Title:

An often-underestimated but crucial part of your message. It must have a hook
that makes the reader curious enough to double-click on it.
Virus - mongers have been intimately aware of, and adept at this technique for
years. Nothing gets read until it's opened. If someone referred you to the
person receiving your e mail, include that name as "mutual friend" in the
title bar.
If there is a benefit to be conveyed by your message, try to sum it up in a
title that grabs the reader's interest immediately.

By way of example-- 1) Bad Title: "Hello Potential Customer John X !";
2) Good Title: "Website Traffic Booster Recommended by Mutual Friend Joe Y !"

2. [ I ] Introduction

In a paragraph consisting of no more than 3 sentences, start your message by
clearly and succintly telling your reader who you are , and why you're
writing. If you must "toot your own horn" here, do it very lightly. There is
plenty of time later (in future communications) for the reader to find out all
about your background, qualifications, and inherently fine personal traits!
Right off the bat, like a major league relief pitcher "setting the plate" for
his best pitch, in the intro you are quickly working the reader into a
malleable state of mind to receive the next step,
wherein you:

3. [ T ] Tell the Tale

To the extent that, in steps 1 and 2, you've made a promise to deliver a
pitch, or set up a scenario of sorts, here is the litmus test for how well you
deliver on that promise. Say what you need to say in strong, specific terms,
and be as brief as possible without damaging the thrust of your intent.
Create a sense of urgency by conveying an easily-understood benefit to the
reader, and follow up with reasons why you are the person best suited, in the
here and now, to bestow such a benefit upon the reader. Have you ever heard
someone tell a joke really well? The trick
is in getting quickly and smoothly to the punchline, then delivering it with
an even tone and straight face, right before:

4. [ E ] Ending

Believe it or not, this is where most "communicators" get hung up. You can
nail the first three steps like a seasoned pro, but not capping off your e -
message in a timely fashion can be a surefire way to see it "fragged."

The reader must be left with a taste of curiosity lingering on the roof of his
or her mouth, that can only be quenched by-- you guessed it!-- responding to
your message. No matter how eloquent you may indeed be, the old adage "less is
more" could not be more appropos than at this juncture. If you cannot "tell
the tale" in 75 words (100 max.) delete the copy and start again.

You will be rewarded with a swelling address book, successful link exchanges
by the score, and a rare skill indispensable for navigating the rough
cyber-seas of communication-- tight writing.
About the Author
Dennis Mahagin promotes and develops content for websites, writes articles,
fiction and poetry for publication on the Web, and puts together grant
applications in his spare time. http://www.artforstudios.com/
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Poetry-21

2007-12-25T02:26:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Beating Depression
Author: Andrea Putting N.D
Depression hits many of us at different times during our lives. The symptoms are commonly known: being tired all the time, low self-esteem, no self-confidence, disturbed sleep, concentration impaired and no interest in life.

Depression is not just a dark mood; it is an illness. Low levels of the hormone serotonin are a known contributing factor. The lower the Serotonin levels the deeper the depression. To increase the Serotonin all the building blocks need to be present. One of the vital missing links is often the amino acid Tryptophan.
So increasing Tryptophan in our diets can help ease depression. Foods that are high in Tryptophan are fish, turkey, meat and chicken, Parmesan cheese, almonds, barley, lentils and bananas. Tryptophanes first priority in the body is to make Niacin (vitamin B3), not to make Serotonin. In other words, it is vital to ensure that you are getting adequate amounts of Niacin in your diet, if you are going to increase the Serotonin levels. Other B Vitamins are also essential. A good balance diet, which includes a variety of fish, pulses and fresh raw vegetables, is always the key.

Some foods that help lift moods are:

Carbohydrates in winter, if you crave these in winter, they may help lift the winter blues. Look towards eating the more complex carbohydrates such as dried beans, pasta, vegetables, cereal, whole grain bread and crackers.

Spinach is high in folic acid. It has been shown that people with depression have lower levels of folic acid than normal. Low folic acid can cause the levels of Serotonin to shrink. The amount need to fight off depression is only 200mg-500mg a day. This amount can easily be found in foods such as green leafy vegetables. 200mg is can be obtained from about three quarters of a cup of spinach.

Fish is brain food. Eating seafood can improve your mood. Seafood is extra high in the trace mineral Selenium. Those with low Selenium levels are more likely to be anxious, depressed and tired. (Australian soils are deficient in Selenium) It has been found that when those with low Selenium levels increase them, their moods improve. Most Selenium comes from grains, seafood and cereals. Brazil nuts are one of the richest sources of them all. Eating just one a day will guarantee you are never deficient in Selenium.

Garlic. Studies on garlic have shown that not only do they have other health benefits, but also the garlic eaters, generally had a greater sense of well-being. They experienced less fatigue, anxiety, sensitivity, agitation and irritability.

Many lifestyle considerations need to be looked in to. Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol can decrease the tryptophan levels, as can caffeine and sugar. When suffering from depression it is easy to use these as a crutch and instead of decreasing your usage, it is increased. Of course this just exacerbates the situation.

Exercise is a great mood lifting. Mood elevating endorphins are released during exercise. A brisk walk or jog is great way to clear the air. Other great exercises for this are cycling, racquet sports, aerobic exercise, weight lifting, etc.

As always, it is important to look at things holistically. Emotional aspect must consider. Often depression comes with an overload of energy, so releasing that energy is important. So apart from exercise already mentioned, massage is a great energy mover. Doing things that help spark your creativity can help release pent up emotional energy too. Consider writing in a journal, or stories, poetry, whatever. Drawing pictures, they don't have to be a master pieces, just let yourself go, draw squiggles, doodle, paint picture, splurge with colour. Take a class in something like pottery, anything creative. Play a musical instrument. Sing. It doesn't have to be in tune, just let it out; this is a great way to release emotions. Enjoy other people's creativity; go to museums, art galleries, craft show, or concerts.

A great way to deal with depression is to get involved in something worthwhile. Leave your troubles behind and help someone else. In our lives today, it is so easy to become isolated from other people. This is just a breeding ground for depression. Join a group and make some friends.
Find someone to talk to about your problems. In severe cases counselling may help.

If you need more than this you may want to consider supplements. Hypericum (St John's Wort) is the number 1 herb for depression. (If you are on other medication, check first that it won't interact) Tryptophan is available but on a limited basis. A multivitamin, which is high in the B vitamins, is essential. Flower Essences are a good stand by to help you through. Essential oils can also lift the mood. (If you would like help in selecting the right combination of supplements, just contact me through my website, http://www.puttingitright.com.au and I will put together a selection for you, with a special price.)

Above all, changing your outlook helps. Work on replacing your negative thoughts with positive empowering thoughts. Take charge and live the life you want to live.

About the Author
Andrea Putting N.D., Naturopath, Writer and creator/owner of health sites including, http://www.puttingitright.com.au , http://www.naturopathsresourcefile.info , and http://www.naturalhealth4cats.info . Explore the world of Natural Medicine; take your health into your own hands. Know how to be healthy and stay healthy.
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Poetry-20

2007-12-24T02:25:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Don't You Quit !
Author: A.Z. Alfred

"A man who has nothing to die for is not fit to live."

Martin Luther

You sat in that secret corner of your room. You felt the bubbles of excitement in your pumping machine (your heart) because an idea that will change the course of your life is replaying itself every three seconds between your ears. So full of life, you took a pen and a notebook, putting down your great idea in black and white. You set a target for yourself, a deadline and a date. You were so excited because of your dreams. And out you go with made plans and a determination to succeed.

After so many attempts, you seem to realize that things are not what you think they are. You realize that just like there are two sides to a coin, same with life. Simply because life has tossed challenges, which you call failures, your way, you chose to join the crew that believes every set plan is nothing but some alphabets and figures written on blank pages. More to say, you accepted the wrong notion that all doors leading to your success are shut, that the world won't see your dreams. And you decided to quit, abandoning your quest. You actually conceded to the word "defeat." You said to your despairing heart " I am a failure."

Of course you are right to have felt that way but before you tumble into a world of nightmares, before you cease to breathe life into your ideas, before you start seeing your-burnt-out-self depending on the monthly pay for the unemployed from Uncle Sam, lets go over a couple of ifs.

If Abraham Lincoln gave up so soon, he would not have been elected president of United States.

If Arnold Swazzenegger despaired after his first workout in the gym, he would not be the master of body builders. And he would not have been anywhere close to being the Governor of California State.

If Tim Berners Lee, the man who developed the World Wide Web, ended his career so soon because of disappointments, you would not now be surfing on the Internet. You would not be reading this either. Probably, electronics messaging would still remain in the horizon of the future.

If all great men, since the dawn of time, had given up so soon, where do you think civilization would be, back in the thirties or forties? Do you think you would have some weird country music, R and B and rap music on your disc man while on the train or bus? No! Everything would be back to the very beginning, millions of years before the birth of Ishmael and Isaac. One thing I know for sure, we would all be living comfortably or uncomfortably, a negative word I rarely sayin caves, sharing authority with Simba, the Lion King. Our Mark and Spencer suits and fur coats would be replaced by some smelly animal skin dried in the sun. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? If you dare life that way, you can click your mouse and this page will vanish from your screen, never to be seen again. But if you don't, then read on.

If you have chosen to read on, this is what I have to say.

Hold on to your dreams! Refuse to quit. Quitters never win and winners never quit. Take your time. Take a long walk. If you live in the city like me, take your long walk through city blocks. If you are in the countryside, you have a better advantage. Take the long walk through that vast field, befriending nature on the way.

Don't just walk tucking your hands in your jacket pocket like a detective. No! Go over those plans of yours again and again as you walk. Rewrite if need be, there is great power in writing down. Don't tell me you have a retentive memory. Write them down. You already have so much in your head, so write your dreams and plans down, paste it where you can see it everyday. Over the washing sink: beside that mirror, your restroom door. Paste it on your computer so you could see it as you chat with friends.

Then set out to bring it to past, ignoring those mountains, for mountains (which are your challenges) most times are made out of molehills and storms in teacups.

Tell yourself, " I won't quit until I get what I want. There is a YES behind every no and a solution to every pressing problem confronting me. I will find it." Close your eyes, take a deep breath and say to yourself, "I have crossed the rubicon, and there's no going back. I will either get a big hit with my plans or I will have to hang on longer than Abraham Lincoln."

Say to yourself, " I have gone too far from where I started from and I'm not giving up. Never!"

And as you seek your dreams with hands and feet unwearied by labors, remember that the dawn is not far in coming.

Coming soon, "Haiku with love"
An inspiring poetry collection by A.Z. Alfred.
To be published by Author House, USA
www.writesight.com/blackzeal101

About the Author
A.Z. Alfred is a writer and a motivational speaker whose greatest pleasure is observing the world through a window while listening to inspirational songs.
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Poetry-2

2007-12-23T02:20:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Cultivating Ki Flow and Mindfulness, Manifesting Mind
Author: Charlie Badenhop
Starting Line

This article is the second in a three part series. In my first article in this series I talked about "Energy, Spirit and Mind" and introduced how these terms are used in Seishindo. In this article I am going to talk about how to cultivate "ki" the energy that is the source of all life. If this is the first article in this series you are reading, you might want to first read my last article, so you have a better understanding of how we think about "ki" in Seshindo.

No one has absolute knowledge (except through faith) of where ki originates from and no one knows where our personal ki goes to after we die. Ki springs from the depth of the universe as well as from the depth of our soul. The way of ki is a gigantic and fascinating mystery, and one that is well worth exploring. In studying ki we can come to a deeper understanding of ourselves, our relationships, and the world we live in. Our study of ki can help to liberate us as we become better attuned to the music and poetry of our heart and soul.

Having an experiential understanding of the nature of ki leads us to encounter a natural, creative intelligence, that far transcends the abilities and powers of any one human being. Ki is the common denominator we share with all of life. I believe that ki is essentially, expansive, mutable, and supportive of life, and that it can adapt to an endless variety of forms and functions depending on how it is received, shaped, and utilized by our system.

I wrote above that ki is "supportive of life" and I want to explain this a bit more here. Ki supports life when our system is able to let it flow unimpeded, like when when our immune system spontaneously heal wounds or illnesses. Ki also has the potential to be destructive in nature when it's flow becomes either stagnant or blocked, as in the case of the body being ravaged by cancer. Noguchi Sensei, the man that developed "Noguchi Sei Tai" (a Japanese system of health management) used to say "Illness is due to excess energy being trapped in the body. The stronger the illness, the more energy there is trapped." One of the main purposes of Noguchi Sei Tai is to facilitate the release of excess energy held in the body so that the body can operate freely, and without impediment. This is also one of the main functions of Seishindo. When the body is stable and able to move freely, our thoughts patterns and emotions will be stable and flowing, and health and emotional balance will be fostered. In my first article I wrote "The quality of our life is not dependent on the circumstances we encounter. The quality of our life is dependent on what we learn from the circumstances we encounter." In this issue I will say, "The quality of our life is not dependant on the quantity of ki available to us. The quality of our life is dependent on our capacity to maintain a free flow of ki throughout our system." Our belief system, as well as the way we facilitate the generation and flow of ki within our system are the major determinants of the quality of our life. Free flowing ki energizes and nourishes the body. Blocked ki can damage us and weaken our ability to adapt. The cultivation of free flowing ki is thus an important activity to explore because the manner in which we cultivate, use, and expend ki, is what determines our health and well being, and who and what we become over time.

One of the main functions of Seishindo is to help people cultivate the ability to be calm, fully present, and feeling one's emotions and bodily sensations, without the need for internal dialogue. When we are at one with our self and our experience there is no need for internal dialogue, for there is no "other one" to talk to. Present in one's body, present in one's brain, and aware of and connected to one's emotions and the environment, but not requiring or engaging in internal dialogue. This is a very special way of being. A way of being that can help us to fully actualize our self in the world. This is a way of being that can help us to deeply connect to our ability to respect, love, and heal, self, other, and the world around us.

Main Course

At every moment in time the ki within your system speaks to you via a somatic language that is as refined, systematic, and complete as your verbal language. This transformation of ki into somatic language is the basis of the non-cognitive wisdom that we call "intuition." Becoming fluent in this language can help you maintain your health and well-being, foster more heartfelt relationships, and assist you in expressing your creative and healing gifts when working with others in various contexts. When you do "just enough" and nothing more or less, you will create the context for your body to be structurally balanced, flexible, and free to move. This is the way you are designed to be, and at such times your ki flows freely. Structurally balanced, flexible, and free to move and change, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

We have a chemical-electrical-muscular response to events, other people, circumstances, and the intake of energy via food, sunlight, water, and other sources. People further react to: presently occurring events, thoughts about possible future events, memories of past events, and internal dialogue. To a large extent, the responses we have to the energy we encounter and generate are dependent on:
1. The way we use our body (structure, movement, flow).
2. Our system of beliefs, and
3. The default neuromuscular biochemical pathways that we have developed over time due to a tendency towards habitual reactions.

The changes that take place in our body and brain are highly systematic in nature, and these changes determine the quality of our emotional responses, and our ability to think in a creative manner. Something occurs, and we spontaneously feel, think, and react in a specific manner, all of which leads to our somatic-emotional experience. For the most part we have limited awareness and understanding of what actually changes within our system, to cause a change in our somatic-emotional experience. We generalize the "feeling tone" of our experience and we give these generalized feelings rather unspecific verbal labels such as "happy" "in love" "ill" "hungry" "depressed."

You can think of our various somatic-emotional reactions to life as "recipes". Increase the blood pressure ever so much, restrict the flow of blood to the extremities a certain amount, increase the speed of your heartbeat, induce certain chemicals into the bloodstream, breathe more shallowly, and think about what could go wrong, and you have created the recipe for "fear." We each create these somatic-emotional recipes outside of our conscious awareness, and without the conscious knowledge of what the "contents" of each recipe are. Most of this activity is coordinated by what in Seishindo we call "somatic intelligence," the intelligence of the mobile brain within the body. The task we face when wanting to live a balanced creative life, is to heighten our ability to sense the components that make up our various somatic-emotional recipes, so that we can continue to adapt and maintain a system that is expansive, balanced, and free flowing. When our system facilitates the free flow of ki, we maintain a state of health, well being, and creativity.

1. There is a dynamic life force (ki) which pulsates through each of us. Most people have developed a tendency to inhibit the flow of energy and movement created by ki when presented with challenging situations. When the natural flow of ki is inhibited, the natural flow of information available (images, sounds, feelings, and "solutions") is also inhibited. Allowing a free flow of energy and movement throughout our system facilitates a free flow of information and thus high quality learning and adaptation.

2. Ki flows best in a system that is balanced in structure, porous, flexible, expansive, and well oxygenated. Therefore in Seishindo we suggest any and all physical exercises and mindfulness training that helps you to accomplish just such a state. This is the kind of state that increases your resilience, adaptive and healing powers, and energy flow. Aikido, Yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, Gyrontonics, and various Seishindo practices are excellent for this. The idea in all of these practices is to increase your awareness of what is taking place in the moment, while entering into an experience where you "stop stopping" yourself, and your thoughts and reactions transcend the limitations of your habituated "everyday" pace and rhythm. When we use more of all of our self and less of any one part of our self, our system will tend to be healthy and highly responsive.

3. Breath moves ki and delivers oxygen to the system. Oxygen and ki are highly supportive of health, well being, and the formulations of solutions. Every thought we have and every emotion we experience, affects the flow of breath and thus ki, within our system. When we are able to maintain a relaxed breathing process appropriate to the situation at hand, we maintain a free flow of ki, our emotions tend to be balanced, and our thinking tends to be solution oriented. There are many different disciplines that offer various breathing exercises. Any well conceived breathing exercise will be extremely helpful in "training" you to maintain sufficient amounts of oxygen in your system. In my last article I presented the Heartbeat Breathing practice. You can find this practice here.

4. Under normal life conditions, when a system receives a "shock" it adapts and rebalances. Extreme life conditions such as trauma result in extreme adaptations, and quite often the rebalancing part of our recovery does not take place. Usually during times of trauma the person's energy, musculature, and thought patterns "lock" part way through the cycle of experience, and the natural and necessary rebalancing back to center, does not occur. When we block the natural flow of ki in our system, we block the flow of the "river of life." Meaningful and lasting change requires shifts in the autonomic, peripheral, and enteric nervous systems, to occur. Such change requires a provoking of the natural wisdom of the body and its capacity to re-balance so that we release the locking of our musculature, and a new higher level of systemwide organization can be allowed to unfold.

The Noguchi Sei Tai exercise of "Katsugen Undo" offers an excellent method to help release the system so that you can once again open up to the possibilities of life, and facilitate the free flow of ki within your system. (More on this later.)

5. The response of "dissociation" or numbing our ability to feel can be quite helpful as an anesthetic under conditions of pain and extreme helplessness. Such responses however become detrimental to our overall health and well being when they are adopted as a generalized response to potentially painful or frightening situations. It is natural for our system to release the anesthetic of an operation after and hour or so, as our system comes "back to life." It is also natural to release the dissociative patterns learned when feeling helpless or in pain, so that we can enter back into a life of pain AND pleasure, sorrow AND joy. We need to discover a path for entering back into the flow of life so we can regain access to the full range of emotions that are available to a healthy emotionally balanced individual. When the sensation of flowing ki is anesthetized we lose our ability to feel into the ebb and flow of our experience. Heartfelt supportive relationships are of great benefit here in helping us to trust that it can be safe to feel again.

6. Whatever we avoid, whatever we are unable to feel and bring our awareness into, does not change. When our system does not change, our ki becomes stagnant, and our life force is weakened. When working to re-claim parts of ourselves we have lost contact with we will do well to begin by gently feeling each and every part of ourselves, so that we can eventually come to know that we are whole. Every part of our self is worthy of loving attention and when we bring loving attention to injured or neglected parts of our self, we foster the flow of ki, a softening of the body, and the opening of our heart. Various mindfulness exercises such as meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Aikido, can be very helpful in this regard.

The challenge of living a heartfelt healthy life is threefold:
1) Gain conscious awareness of how you generate your somatic-emotional experience.
2) Recognize the ingredients of the somatic-emotional "recipes" you generate as a result of your experience.
3) Change the recipes you create, and thus change your relationship to your experience and your life "story".
If you are able to change the habituated and highly specific somatic-emotional reactions you have to events you will transform the way you express your emotions, think, and react.

In order to assist each person in being able to change their consciousness we have developed various practices. These practices are designed to make the transparent aspects of your experience more obvious. The practices help you to notice and effect changes in various aspects of your experience that were previously outside of your conscious awareness. By taking part in these practices you will learn how to intuit and react to the seed somatic-emotional experience that forms the foundation of your verbal explication of life. In order to cultivate ki, cultivate mindfulness. In order to cultivate mindfulness cultivate a love for all that lives, and all that you are and aren't.

Over a period of time by performing mindfulness practices, you will also be more likely to understand how to help others change their experience as well.
About the Author
Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist. Benefit from his thought-provoking ideas and a new self-help Practice every two weeks, by subscribing to his complimentary newsletter "Pure Heart, Simple Mind" at http://www.seishindo.org/anger/index.html .
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Poetry-19

2007-12-22T02:18:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

How to Succeed for the Rest of Your Life
Author: Steve Brunkhorst
This article may be reprinted on your website or in your opt-in newsletter or ezine. It may be reprinted unchanged with inclusion of the author's statement of copyright, resource information, and website links in clickable hyperlinked format.
-------------------------

By Steve Brunkhorst
http://AchieveEzine.com " target=_blank>http://AchieveEzine.com

I spoke recently with the owner of a large clothing store who had poured years of effort into his business. He had achieved his dream and built a successful career. However, his hectic pace was becoming difficult to maintain.

New interests were tugging at his heartstrings. He felt himself entering another phase of life. He wanted a change but didn't want to give up his successful lifestyle.

What would you do if you felt yourself heading for a major change? How could you play a big enough game to follow your heart and continue to succeed? Here are some ideas and questions to consider.

Welcome New Desires and Changes

You will feel new desires as your needs and values change over time. Welcome these desires as doorways to a compelling future. Your new interests are there for a reason. They keep you on purpose and allow you to live in harmony with your changing values.

What do you really want the most right now? Write down what will be thrilling about your future. See and feel your goals as if you had already obtained them. Let your desire for new accomplishments build and burn passionately within your heart. Welcome new desires with open arms.

Ask Yourself Meaningful Questions

Ask questions that will intrigue you and lead to self-discovery. For example, what, more than anything, determines the quality of your life? What are the most important things your past has taught you? What would bring you permanent success and satisfaction?

These revealing questions will bring insights and focus your mind to take action. A life-long curiosity about yourself will move you toward the fulfillment of your desires.

Update Your Knowledge

Curiosity also leads to learning. Read a variety of books by authors you have not read before. Become a student of ground-breaking ideas as well as accepted theories. What do you need to know that would allow you to pursue a promising new interest?

Continuous learning is necessary for continuous success -- especially in today's rapidly changing world. Keep seeking new wisdom, and apply that wisdom daily.

Keep Great Company

Learn with friends and colleagues in an atmosphere of mutual support. Teleclasses provide an economical and enjoyable way to investigate current trends. Groups can discuss ways to interpret and apply the teachings of great books. Participants can examine new points of view as well as gain support and encouragement for their plans.

Supportive relationships with peer groups provide a positive influence and offer a wealth of learning and creativity through friendship and conversation. Where could you find the support to help you manifest your desires?

Create Some New Recipes

Use your knowledge to write some tantalizing plans to achieve your objectives. Think of your plans as recipes. Choose the ingredients carefully. Experiment with creative ideas and fresh approaches to reach goals.

Life-long winners dive beneath the surface of life's circumstances and appearances. They uncover new options and solve problems in original ways. They focus on creativity rather than competition. They create fortune from misfortune. What usually triggers your most creative ideas?

Capture Your Wisdom in Words

Record your knowledge in a journal. Include experiences, dreams, stories, poems, and quotes that inspire you. Keep track of successes and failures so that you will learn from both.

Writing will also trigger valuable new ideas. What is the first thing you would write in your journal today?

Revitalize Your Body and Spirit

Life-long achievers maintain physical and spiritual vitality. A healthy body reflects a healthy spirit. Prayer and meditation can revitalize the spirit. An appropriate physician-approved nutrition and a fitness program can revitalize the body. How could you begin raising your level of energy and vitality?

Feel Gratitude for Your Achievements

Acknowledge with gratitude all of your life situations - the desirable and undesirable. Then create a deep feeling of gratitude for your future accomplishments as if they were already achieved.

Gratitude strengthens faith. It allows you to choose the life scenario you want based on present-moment actions. You will manifest the possibilities for which you are sincerely grateful. What are you the most grateful for now?

Bring Your Gifts to the World

Your definition of success will evolve throughout life. Your perspective will shift from what you want to obtain to what you want to give. It is by using your talents and bringing your special gifts to the world that you will receive your heart's desires. What talents do you possess that you've never developed to their full potential?

You can succeed for the rest of your life if you honor your values. You will grow by welcoming new desires as a natural unfolding of your life's purpose. A spirit of sincere gratitude and giving will manifest those desires. Best of all, you can enjoy every step of the journey.
About the Author
© Copyright 2004 by Steve Brunkhorst. Steve is a life success coach, and the creator of Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration, a popular mini-zine bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve more in your career and personal life. Subscribe today by visiting Steve's site at http://AchieveEzine.com " target=_blank>http://AchieveEzine.com
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Poetry-19

2007-12-22T02:18:00.001-05:00

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How to Succeed for the Rest of Your Life
Author: Steve Brunkhorst
This article may be reprinted on your website or in your opt-in newsletter or ezine. It may be reprinted unchanged with inclusion of the author's statement of copyright, resource information, and website links in clickable hyperlinked format.
-------------------------

By Steve Brunkhorst
http://AchieveEzine.com " target=_blank>http://AchieveEzine.com

I spoke recently with the owner of a large clothing store who had poured years of effort into his business. He had achieved his dream and built a successful career. However, his hectic pace was becoming difficult to maintain.

New interests were tugging at his heartstrings. He felt himself entering another phase of life. He wanted a change but didn't want to give up his successful lifestyle.

What would you do if you felt yourself heading for a major change? How could you play a big enough game to follow your heart and continue to succeed? Here are some ideas and questions to consider.

Welcome New Desires and Changes

You will feel new desires as your needs and values change over time. Welcome these desires as doorways to a compelling future. Your new interests are there for a reason. They keep you on purpose and allow you to live in harmony with your changing values.

What do you really want the most right now? Write down what will be thrilling about your future. See and feel your goals as if you had already obtained them. Let your desire for new accomplishments build and burn passionately within your heart. Welcome new desires with open arms.

Ask Yourself Meaningful Questions

Ask questions that will intrigue you and lead to self-discovery. For example, what, more than anything, determines the quality of your life? What are the most important things your past has taught you? What would bring you permanent success and satisfaction?

These revealing questions will bring insights and focus your mind to take action. A life-long curiosity about yourself will move you toward the fulfillment of your desires.

Update Your Knowledge

Curiosity also leads to learning. Read a variety of books by authors you have not read before. Become a student of ground-breaking ideas as well as accepted theories. What do you need to know that would allow you to pursue a promising new interest?

Continuous learning is necessary for continuous success -- especially in today's rapidly changing world. Keep seeking new wisdom, and apply that wisdom daily.

Keep Great Company

Learn with friends and colleagues in an atmosphere of mutual support. Teleclasses provide an economical and enjoyable way to investigate current trends. Groups can discuss ways to interpret and apply the teachings of great books. Participants can examine new points of view as well as gain support and encouragement for their plans.

Supportive relationships with peer groups provide a positive influence and offer a wealth of learning and creativity through friendship and conversation. Where could you find the support to help you manifest your desires?

Create Some New Recipes

Use your knowledge to write some tantalizing plans to achieve your objectives. Think of your plans as recipes. Choose the ingredients carefully. Experiment with creative ideas and fresh approaches to reach goals.

Life-long winners dive beneath the surface of life's circumstances and appearances. They uncover new options and solve problems in original ways. They focus on creativity rather than competition. They create fortune from misfortune. What usually triggers your most creative ideas?

Capture Your Wisdom in Words

Record your knowledge in a journal. Include experiences, dreams, stories, poems, and quotes that inspire you. Keep track of successes and failures so that you will learn from both.

Writing will also trigger valuable new ideas. What is the first thing you would write in your journal today?

Revitalize Your Body and Spirit

Life-long achievers maintain physical and spiritual vitality. A healthy body reflects a healthy spirit. Prayer and meditation can revitalize the spirit. An appropriate physician-approved nutrition and a fitness program can revitalize the body. How could you begin raising your level of energy and vitality?

Feel Gratitude for Your Achievements

Acknowledge with gratitude all of your life situations - the desirable and undesirable. Then create a deep feeling of gratitude for your future accomplishments as if they were already achieved.

Gratitude strengthens faith. It allows you to choose the life scenario you want based on present-moment actions. You will manifest the possibilities for which you are sincerely grateful. What are you the most grateful for now?

Bring Your Gifts to the World

Your definition of success will evolve throughout life. Your perspective will shift from what you want to obtain to what you want to give. It is by using your talents and bringing your special gifts to the world that you will receive your heart's desires. What talents do you possess that you've never developed to their full potential?

You can succeed for the rest of your life if you honor your values. You will grow by welcoming new desires as a natural unfolding of your life's purpose. A spirit of sincere gratitude and giving will manifest those desires. Best of all, you can enjoy every step of the journey.
About the Author
© Copyright 2004 by Steve Brunkhorst. Steve is a life success coach, and the creator of Achieve! 60-Second Nuggets of Inspiration, a popular mini-zine bringing great stories, motivational nuggets, and inspiring thoughts to help you achieve more in your career and personal life. Subscribe today by visiting Steve's site at http://AchieveEzine.com " target=_blank>http://AchieveEzine.com
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Poetry-18

2007-12-21T02:16:00.001-05:00

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How Writing Radio Can Help You Become a Better Writer
Author: Michele Pariza Wacek
Knowing how to write, and write well, is a skill that will come in handy in all sorts of situations. And if you combine good writing skills with the persuasive selling tactics found in, say, copywriting, you'll be that much more ahead of your competition.

Of all the different types of writing I've done in my life (and believe me, I've tried practically all of them) writing radio has made one of the bigger impacts on my writing style.

Below are three ways writing radio can help strengthen your writing style. (Oh, and these tips will also help you write better radio copy too.)

1. Follow the rules. Sometimes rules are good. Especially rules that force you to write a certain way. (Think poetry -- mastering those rules can have an amazing effect on your writing style.) Rules require you to slow down and think, to analyze your word, sentence, grammar, punctuation, etc., choices. And that can be very beneficial to your development as a writer.

Radio is short. You have to write something that fits into a 30- or 60-second slot. Not a lot of time or a lot of words. In that 30 or 60 seconds, you need to capture the listener's attention, explain why they should be interested in buying what you're selling, then let them know what you'd like their next step to be. Oh, and did I mention you need to have the business name in there at least twice and probably a tag line as well? And don't forget about music. Or sound effects.

Now the beauty of this is once you've mastered radio rules, you can apply it to all sorts of things. A 30-second pitch for your business you can tell people at networking events. A 15-second introduction before a speech. A quick product spiel for your voice mail. A 15-second pitch for your novel to spit out at agents and editors at writers' conferences. The possibilities are endless.

2. Forces you to write tight. Remember, radio is short. Yet, there's still a lot you have to shove into it. So what's the solution? Absolutely no extra words allowed.

Be brutal. Cut out anything you don't need. In fact, radio is where I first learned to start cutting "that" out. Most "thats" you don't need, and nothing shows you this like radio.

Here's how I write radio. I start with a first draft. I read it over. I think it's pretty good -- I have all the salient points in there. I read it out loud.

Now the fun begins.

Usually it's too long. You see, I time myself reading. So I have to start chopping words.

When you have to make a script fit into a certain time frame, it's amazing how many words you suddenly discover can be deleted. Or replaced with simpler, shorter words. Or how many sentences can be trimmed. Or phrases made more concise.

As you can imagine, writing radio has really honed my editing skills.

3. Writing for the ear. Writing for the ear is different than writing for the eye. The eye is far more forgiving. Oh that sentence is a bit too long, but it's okay. Hmm, yes I do see that awkward phrase, but I'm fine with it.

Not the ear. The ear is brutal. It's like one of those headmasters from a Dickens' novel, standing in front of the classroom with a stick and banging it every time a student stutters on an answer.

The ear catches everything -- sentences that are too long and don't allow you to take a breath; sentences that don't flow properly; long, complicated five-dollar words that twist the tongue in a knot and much, much more.

Focus on writing shorter sentences. Simpler sentences. Vary your sentences. Use simple words.

And that's just plain good old writing advice no matter what you happen to be writing.

Creativity Exercises -- Write a Radio Ad

Now it's your turn. Time to sit down and write a radio ad.

First, choose something you want the ad to be about. Maybe one of your products or services. But choose only one. More than one and you're just asking for trouble. (Rule of thumb -- one message per ad. No more. Otherwise you run the risk of losing your target market. Pick one message and make it very simple and very clear.)

Now do what I do. Write the ad. Start by keeping it under a general word count -- 100 words for a 30-second ad and 190 words for a 60-second spot.

Finished your first draft? Great. Now read it. And time yourself. (Those clocks on the computer desktop are great for this.)

What, you went over your limit? Better start cutting. See how many words you can take out and sentences you can tighten. Or replace words and phrases with something shorter.

Now read it again. Still too long? Or maybe now it's too awkward. See previous paragraph. Keep repeating until you end up with something that sounds smooth and fits in the allotted time.

About the Author
Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts and Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She offers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine their creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com
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Poetry-17

2007-12-20T02:15:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

How To Write a Romantic Love Letter
Author: Renee Michaels
Does the thought of writing a love letter or poem automatically reduce your vocabulary to a 5-year-old's level? Well, believe it or not, that's a great place to begin!

Kids speak straight from the heart. They don't worry about tripping over the right words, they only know how to say what they want using the most simple language. As adults, we let our thinking get in the way of our emotions and worry about the details before we have the big picture.

Dream up a love letter
You don't need a sample love letter or a free printable love letter. You're going to dream up your own romantic love letters.

An indispensible tool for writing is a thesaurus. You'll find many free ones online; they're a wonderful aid to finding exactly the right word. Have paper and pen ready to jot notes, but forget about words and writing for now.

Sit in a comfortable chair or lie down, let your shoulders drop and take a few deep breaths, at least 5 or 6. Inhale deeply, feel the air going to the bottom of your belly, then slowly exhale as you pull in your abdomen.

Close your eyes and begin visualizing the one you love and create a movie of you slowly running your eyes over every inch of their body. What do you especially appreciate? View their eyes looking back at you, run your fingers through their hair, caress their cheek and softly brush your lips against theirs. See the smile of joy, the tilt of their head towards you, their arms around you. Feel their heart beat against yours and take in the warmth of their skin. Watch as they run towards you, eager to rush into your arms. How do you feel?

Let your movie continue running. Pull out the memories of when you had a lot of fun and laughter, your most passionate times together or when you were sad and your love silently held you close. Which of them brings up the most emotion in you? What do you see, hear, taste, touch and feel? What are they wearing . . . or not wearing?

Linger a little longer; let the feelings run throughout your entire body. Are you getting little tingles running up and down your spine?

First love letter steps
The most emotional memories are the ones that will fuel your love letter or poem. You should be in a better mood for writing, relaxed and smiling. Take a few more deep breaths before you begin to write.

You don't have to get up; this might put you into "thinking" mode. Begin jotting notes down. Slowly replay each movie and describe the scenes with short, simple phrases, as a child would. Later on, you can link these shorter phrases into longer ones, but for now, you want to capture all the sensations, physically and emotionally, that being with the one you love means to you.

Love and emotions are abstract concepts so you need "furniture" to make it real. Your movie gives you this material. Relate the juicy details of the surrounding scenery, your love, what all your senses experience and add them to your love letter.

Now put it all together.

Instead of "When you walk into a room and smile at me, I forget what I'm thinking," add the furniture. "You quietly glide into the sunlight streaming through the window, your silky hair falls over your shoulder. And then you gently tilt your head towards me and flash me that quirky little half smile of yours that gets my heart beating faster, my lips tingling . . . and I forget everything I ever knew as our eyes meet and lock into an embrace."

No fancy words, there's only two words that have three syllables!

The "Laundry List" technique
If you find this difficult to do, using the "laundry list" technique to write a love letter may be easier. Simply list all the qualities you appreciate about your love: physical, emotional, gestures, favorite sayings, funny habits. For physical, start at the top of their head and work down to their toes. For emotional, list different situations and how their response makes you feel.

Or you could make a list of all the dreams you both have and how you want to be together to share them.

Find a clip art heart (usually available in a word processing program) and use it as a bullet before each item in your list. Or give it a number, "101 Ways I Love You." Then print out your list on fancy paper. Add a photo of you both, either digitally or glue it on afterwards. Spray on a little cologne (at a distance) and, voila, you have a romantic love letter.

Love Poems
A love poem can be the most daunting to attempt and many won't even try. If you really want to make up a poem, but feel you have no talent, cheat a little! Look up a favorite poem and see if you can change a few lines to personalize it. Or do the same with a favorite song lyric, then perform it karaoke style. Go all out and dress up for the occasion.

If you have a special occasion you're celebrating, you may want to have a poet put your feelings into a formal poem for you. Reciting the poem will make a bigger impact than just handing it over and as it may be gift wrapped, make sure you have a copy to read aloud.

Once you get the hang of it, love letters will flow from your heart and fingers. Remember the little kid in you and keep it simple.

Copyright 2005 Renee Michaels
About the Author
Renee Michaels is an enthusiastic woman for all aspects of life and uses her skills to develop web businesses. For a new http://www.best-wedding-anniversary-gift-ideas.com/romantic-anniversary-idea.html " romantic anniversary idea or two, visit LoveGifts.

Reprint article conditions: No changes to the content, bio and copyright must be included, and all links must be live.
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Poetry-17

2007-12-20T02:15:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

How To Write a Romantic Love Letter
Author: Renee Michaels
Does the thought of writing a love letter or poem automatically reduce your vocabulary to a 5-year-old's level? Well, believe it or not, that's a great place to begin!

Kids speak straight from the heart. They don't worry about tripping over the right words, they only know how to say what they want using the most simple language. As adults, we let our thinking get in the way of our emotions and worry about the details before we have the big picture.

Dream up a love letter
You don't need a sample love letter or a free printable love letter. You're going to dream up your own romantic love letters.

An indispensible tool for writing is a thesaurus. You'll find many free ones online; they're a wonderful aid to finding exactly the right word. Have paper and pen ready to jot notes, but forget about words and writing for now.

Sit in a comfortable chair or lie down, let your shoulders drop and take a few deep breaths, at least 5 or 6. Inhale deeply, feel the air going to the bottom of your belly, then slowly exhale as you pull in your abdomen.

Close your eyes and begin visualizing the one you love and create a movie of you slowly running your eyes over every inch of their body. What do you especially appreciate? View their eyes looking back at you, run your fingers through their hair, caress their cheek and softly brush your lips against theirs. See the smile of joy, the tilt of their head towards you, their arms around you. Feel their heart beat against yours and take in the warmth of their skin. Watch as they run towards you, eager to rush into your arms. How do you feel?

Let your movie continue running. Pull out the memories of when you had a lot of fun and laughter, your most passionate times together or when you were sad and your love silently held you close. Which of them brings up the most emotion in you? What do you see, hear, taste, touch and feel? What are they wearing . . . or not wearing?

Linger a little longer; let the feelings run throughout your entire body. Are you getting little tingles running up and down your spine?

First love letter steps
The most emotional memories are the ones that will fuel your love letter or poem. You should be in a better mood for writing, relaxed and smiling. Take a few more deep breaths before you begin to write.

You don't have to get up; this might put you into "thinking" mode. Begin jotting notes down. Slowly replay each movie and describe the scenes with short, simple phrases, as a child would. Later on, you can link these shorter phrases into longer ones, but for now, you want to capture all the sensations, physically and emotionally, that being with the one you love means to you.

Love and emotions are abstract concepts so you need "furniture" to make it real. Your movie gives you this material. Relate the juicy details of the surrounding scenery, your love, what all your senses experience and add them to your love letter.

Now put it all together.

Instead of "When you walk into a room and smile at me, I forget what I'm thinking," add the furniture. "You quietly glide into the sunlight streaming through the window, your silky hair falls over your shoulder. And then you gently tilt your head towards me and flash me that quirky little half smile of yours that gets my heart beating faster, my lips tingling . . . and I forget everything I ever knew as our eyes meet and lock into an embrace."

No fancy words, there's only two words that have three syllables!

The "Laundry List" technique
If you find this difficult to do, using the "laundry list" technique to write a love letter may be easier. Simply list all the qualities you appreciate about your love: physical, emotional, gestures, favorite sayings, funny habits. For physical, start at the top of their head and work down to their toes. For emotional, list different situations and how their response makes you feel.

Or you could make a list of all the dreams you both have and how you want to be together to share them.

Find a clip art heart (usually available in a word processing program) and use it as a bullet before each item in your list. Or give it a number, "101 Ways I Love You." Then print out your list on fancy paper. Add a photo of you both, either digitally or glue it on afterwards. Spray on a little cologne (at a distance) and, voila, you have a romantic love letter.

Love Poems
A love poem can be the most daunting to attempt and many won't even try. If you really want to make up a poem, but feel you have no talent, cheat a little! Look up a favorite poem and see if you can change a few lines to personalize it. Or do the same with a favorite song lyric, then perform it karaoke style. Go all out and dress up for the occasion.

If you have a special occasion you're celebrating, you may want to have a poet put your feelings into a formal poem for you. Reciting the poem will make a bigger impact than just handing it over and as it may be gift wrapped, make sure you have a copy to read aloud.

Once you get the hang of it, love letters will flow from your heart and fingers. Remember the little kid in you and keep it simple.

Copyright 2005 Renee Michaels
About the Author
Renee Michaels is an enthusiastic woman for all aspects of life and uses her skills to develop web businesses. For a new http://www.best-wedding-anniversary-gift-ideas.com/romantic-anniversary-idea.html " romantic anniversary idea or two, visit LoveGifts.

Reprint article conditions: No changes to the content, bio and copyright must be included, and all links must be live.
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Poetry-16

2007-12-19T02:09:00.002-05:00

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Feature Article

My Father Who Art in Heaven
Author: Robert Bruce Baird
I took one university course before discovering I was entitled to go into a Master's Program at York University if I got over 75%-ile on the GMAT. With ten years successful business experience and by testing out of the Baccalaureate Level course (CLEP test). This one course was Logic. The professor got his doctorate by doing a thesis on 'Giving and Do-Gooders'. On the day of the final exam I brought him a one page premise in support of 'He who is least selfish, is MOST selfish.'. He read it while we wrote the exam, which I finished early enough for him to tell me all the things that were wrong with my premise. My best point in retort was 'Why didn't you consider this possibility?' He was incensed and threatened like a lot of people who deal with my 'know-it-allness'. After all, he had achieved his esteemed doctorate and I was just 29 in a first year B.A. class.

So why was I wrong? Why did it upset him so much? What could I possibly have known that made him avoid me like the plague when I saw him at the racetrack (horses, and he didn't even acknowledge a wave) a couple of weeks later? How could I see something he hadn't even considered or that his thesis guides hadn't brought up? What value is there in an education where 'do-gooders' are diminished by egoists who don't even observe that humanity has higher aspirations than mere selfish recognition in the mode of such arcane and abstruse ideologues and pedagogues as Hegel? I quoted Van Dyke's poetry and Gibran (maybe the poetry and its' heart touching rather than intellect enchanting appeal was the cause):

"There are those who as in yonder valley, the myrtle breathes its fragrance to the air. These are the children of GOD, and through them he smiles upon the earth!"

My sense of 'Brotherhood' was offended by his narcissistic pessimism but I smiled in the confidence that I was right. That annoying look of pomposity that comes from actually learning and being interested with an open mind rather than a sheepskin from fools who 'think' they are wise men. It could easily be said that this is arrogance and it has been said more than once. The reader may think that and if they have read this far in this book they are entitled to have that opinion of me. For myself I know I am a 'fool'. THE SOUL is another matter indeed. Yes, I know there are many who give in expectation of return or in hope of building fences that obligate and manipulate others to recognize their specialness. The white picket fences of fantasies have confronted my search on more than one occasion.

That was an unnecessary and obvious observation that I didn't feel warranted anything more than a mere stipulation to its veracity. It was his whole thesis though buttressed by other 'me-too' scholars who can wend words and vacillate like moths to a flame or deer in the headlights of oncoming vehicles. I diminished its import as a stage like puberty in the becomingness toward 'bliss' that comes from giving without need of return.

In fact the return of a favour isn't something I would want as much as passing it along to others in need. But, there have been times when I know I've given and seen others try to negate either the gift or me, so maybe I haven't always been so truly motivated at those times. As a child I had always valued true sharing and the model my father created in his simple and wondrous gift of friendship and respect to myself and my three brothers. He never felt any need (I could see, to the most part) to control or form us in his image vicariously or otherwise. He loved to hear us call him 'JIM'! It truly was unusual and people often remarked on that fact.

No higher position in his cosmogony than enabling and learning from and WITH us! He was a soul who participated without prejudice in the many wonders nature (God) provides us all. In the end, I knew LOVE was there when I 'let a bird go free'; if 'it returned' of its own accord and strong volition with hopes of adding to what I knew or sharing what it had helped others to learn - that infrequent treasure is the essence of what makes me proud. I knew it is not just in this world that we receive benefits or karmic reward. History is full of examples of those who gave openly being persecuted by those who take! Jesus, Socrates and Tesla were becoming even greater guides for my pursuit.

I was finding more than I ever thought there was in the words of Shakespeare and loved Victor Hugo's appreciation of the bard when he talked about 'glimpsing the waves of the marvellous'. I had no anthropomorphed or other entity that I could demand a hearing from in my prayers. No following, no cult, not even a desire to belong to most of the human race. I was wealthy in matters material. My goals had been met in most of the driven ways we seek recognition and it was only for those I wanted to share it with that I derived benefit. I spent money like a bandit waiting to be caught. Women had shown me things that I could never have learned in books. I had been able to know others thoughts and dreams when I was close to them. They were in tune with me on many occasions in the same way. My father had told me such things were possible. He called it 'the pixie-mind' and told me he loved how women could flit from topic to topic knowing each others feelings and not having to beat a subject to death with intellect. I had much more to learn - and was eagerly awaiting all that life would bring. Still - very much in stillness - I knew my life had 'quickened' and taken a firm stand on the path towards Love and giving with no expectation of return. How could I accept his thesis that do-gooders pursue only self-gratification or Hegelian recognition?

Twenty years passed before I read Aristotle's 'Nichomachean Ethics' and saw my 'contribution dynamics of day to day life' were therein contemplated. He had written this book in honour of his father, whose ethics had inspired him. Maybe that means society had screwed his father up a little in the matter of women too, I can't say it comes through in this book and I know that lots of people have wanted to put these words into the mouth of great men so others would follow. My father had failed to find his equal in love and my mother was a schizophrenic. He never implicated to us that this was the way of women and it was a great sorrow to him that we might be negatively inclined towards women as a result. It did happen to my oldest brother in some weird ways that I cannot trace to my father. My own placement of women on a pedestal was no doubt partially due to a lack of a good female role model or trusted friend (that a sister might have supplied).

Like fine porcelain objets d'art, I marveled at their depth and beauties as if on a pedestal by the gods they had been placed. 'Jim' was long dead when I began to write in earnest in order to attempt to express the Joy of LEARNING he had encouraged in me. All the marvels, mysteries, experiences and loves of life (except having children) had been mine. I knew my writing skills were rudimentary at best. Big words and the gift of the gab are not all it takes. With little hope of capturing the essence in style, I proceeded to do what Jim could easily have done. His wit and style, his writing skills were plentiful. I had encouraged him to take this as his purpose before his life ended. There had been two years during which our time together centered on his impending demise in the physical form. That was due to my 'occult' study of things like palm and face reading (chirogamy and physiogamy). It was clear to me that he would die around the age of 65. Unless, and it is a big word, just like 'IF'. Free will can over-ride the confluence of forces that create action if that free will is properly constructed with RIGHT THOUGHT. The best construct for me has always been helping others and giving. Thus I felt it would be for him. If he devoted himself to the path of giving to all of society the many things he knew that few apprehended. He was a truly educated man and could have been a Renaissance man if he had not devoted himself to our upbringing.

He said he had poor eyesight and had no desire to cheat fate. He was also quite unconvinced that such concepts had a high degree of fact and likelihood. Like me, he had always doubted and knew the value of such skepticism. He liked the idea of a spiritual cosmology that had a plan, purpose and consciousness in collective dimensional layers that harmonize. He knew I was not a follower and that my psychic experiences had been real for me. We all try to fool ourselves with massive rationale and wishful thinking. He did not accuse me of this, but he may have thought it - it was good to talk about his life and prepare myself. Saying how much he meant to me and my brothers for many times was a balm for my soul. There were so many things to thank him for and none of them were easy for him to listen to. In the end it was enough to honor his freedom and accept his choice to take whatever happened in stride. We put him in the ground the day after he turned 65.

He had a note in his wallet that gave me as the person to call in the event he died. I am the third born. He knew I knew what to say and that my story of where he was going was real and good. He had been given a clean bill of health to work after his retirement age just a couple of weeks earlier, before he went to the cottage for his vacation. He died of a heart attack and had crawled up from where he was working on the dock, as near as we can figure. He loved that place as much as he loved us. Years earlier he had visited me in Miami and we had time together as he thought about what he would do when he retired. His time in Miami Beach led him to say it was an 'elephant graveyard' that could not be his ending place. I stopped foretelling death!

Success is not my goal and no one should emulate me, it is a lonely and painful existence to be blessed with such insight. The gifts carry a heavy responsibility and separate me from those who I most enjoy. There is always the need even if I don't want to, to reach out and help someone. Being outside the materially focused 'reality' and trying to change the world like Don Quixote can also become something of a bore, when all the little things one does are crushed in the mendacity of despair and disbelief that allows the ego to deny its soul. No, I expect NO recognition and I know there is hope to see and learn for humanity. In the end if my writing has an impact it will make me have to do things that will take me away from the constant proof of ancient lovers of life that I do enjoy honoring in these words. It matters little what others think (I take a lot of pride in what they do.) because I know my soul will suffer less and enjoy more, the fruits of all I have learned, wherever I go.

About the Author
World-Mysteries.com
Columnist in The ES Press Magazine
Author of Diverse Druids
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Poetry-16

2007-12-19T02:09:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

My Father Who Art in Heaven
Author: Robert Bruce Baird
I took one university course before discovering I was entitled to go into a Master's Program at York University if I got over 75%-ile on the GMAT. With ten years successful business experience and by testing out of the Baccalaureate Level course (CLEP test). This one course was Logic. The professor got his doctorate by doing a thesis on 'Giving and Do-Gooders'. On the day of the final exam I brought him a one page premise in support of 'He who is least selfish, is MOST selfish.'. He read it while we wrote the exam, which I finished early enough for him to tell me all the things that were wrong with my premise. My best point in retort was 'Why didn't you consider this possibility?' He was incensed and threatened like a lot of people who deal with my 'know-it-allness'. After all, he had achieved his esteemed doctorate and I was just 29 in a first year B.A. class.

So why was I wrong? Why did it upset him so much? What could I possibly have known that made him avoid me like the plague when I saw him at the racetrack (horses, and he didn't even acknowledge a wave) a couple of weeks later? How could I see something he hadn't even considered or that his thesis guides hadn't brought up? What value is there in an education where 'do-gooders' are diminished by egoists who don't even observe that humanity has higher aspirations than mere selfish recognition in the mode of such arcane and abstruse ideologues and pedagogues as Hegel? I quoted Van Dyke's poetry and Gibran (maybe the poetry and its' heart touching rather than intellect enchanting appeal was the cause):

"There are those who as in yonder valley, the myrtle breathes its fragrance to the air. These are the children of GOD, and through them he smiles upon the earth!"

My sense of 'Brotherhood' was offended by his narcissistic pessimism but I smiled in the confidence that I was right. That annoying look of pomposity that comes from actually learning and being interested with an open mind rather than a sheepskin from fools who 'think' they are wise men. It could easily be said that this is arrogance and it has been said more than once. The reader may think that and if they have read this far in this book they are entitled to have that opinion of me. For myself I know I am a 'fool'. THE SOUL is another matter indeed. Yes, I know there are many who give in expectation of return or in hope of building fences that obligate and manipulate others to recognize their specialness. The white picket fences of fantasies have confronted my search on more than one occasion.

That was an unnecessary and obvious observation that I didn't feel warranted anything more than a mere stipulation to its veracity. It was his whole thesis though buttressed by other 'me-too' scholars who can wend words and vacillate like moths to a flame or deer in the headlights of oncoming vehicles. I diminished its import as a stage like puberty in the becomingness toward 'bliss' that comes from giving without need of return.

In fact the return of a favour isn't something I would want as much as passing it along to others in need. But, there have been times when I know I've given and seen others try to negate either the gift or me, so maybe I haven't always been so truly motivated at those times. As a child I had always valued true sharing and the model my father created in his simple and wondrous gift of friendship and respect to myself and my three brothers. He never felt any need (I could see, to the most part) to control or form us in his image vicariously or otherwise. He loved to hear us call him 'JIM'! It truly was unusual and people often remarked on that fact.

No higher position in his cosmogony than enabling and learning from and WITH us! He was a soul who participated without prejudice in the many wonders nature (God) provides us all. In the end, I knew LOVE was there when I 'let a bird go free'; if 'it returned' of its own accord and strong volition with hopes of adding to what I knew or sharing what it had helped others to learn - that infrequent treasure is the essence of what makes me proud. I knew it is not just in this world that we receive benefits or karmic reward. History is full of examples of those who gave openly being persecuted by those who take! Jesus, Socrates and Tesla were becoming even greater guides for my pursuit.

I was finding more than I ever thought there was in the words of Shakespeare and loved Victor Hugo's appreciation of the bard when he talked about 'glimpsing the waves of the marvellous'. I had no anthropomorphed or other entity that I could demand a hearing from in my prayers. No following, no cult, not even a desire to belong to most of the human race. I was wealthy in matters material. My goals had been met in most of the driven ways we seek recognition and it was only for those I wanted to share it with that I derived benefit. I spent money like a bandit waiting to be caught. Women had shown me things that I could never have learned in books. I had been able to know others thoughts and dreams when I was close to them. They were in tune with me on many occasions in the same way. My father had told me such things were possible. He called it 'the pixie-mind' and told me he loved how women could flit from topic to topic knowing each others feelings and not having to beat a subject to death with intellect. I had much more to learn - and was eagerly awaiting all that life would bring. Still - very much in stillness - I knew my life had 'quickened' and taken a firm stand on the path towards Love and giving with no expectation of return. How could I accept his thesis that do-gooders pursue only self-gratification or Hegelian recognition?

Twenty years passed before I read Aristotle's 'Nichomachean Ethics' and saw my 'contribution dynamics of day to day life' were therein contemplated. He had written this book in honour of his father, whose ethics had inspired him. Maybe that means society had screwed his father up a little in the matter of women too, I can't say it comes through in this book and I know that lots of people have wanted to put these words into the mouth of great men so others would follow. My father had failed to find his equal in love and my mother was a schizophrenic. He never implicated to us that this was the way of women and it was a great sorrow to him that we might be negatively inclined towards women as a result. It did happen to my oldest brother in some weird ways that I cannot trace to my father. My own placement of women on a pedestal was no doubt partially due to a lack of a good female role model or trusted friend (that a sister might have supplied).

Like fine porcelain objets d'art, I marveled at their depth and beauties as if on a pedestal by the gods they had been placed. 'Jim' was long dead when I began to write in earnest in order to attempt to express the Joy of LEARNING he had encouraged in me. All the marvels, mysteries, experiences and loves of life (except having children) had been mine. I knew my writing skills were rudimentary at best. Big words and the gift of the gab are not all it takes. With little hope of capturing the essence in style, I proceeded to do what Jim could easily have done. His wit and style, his writing skills were plentiful. I had encouraged him to take this as his purpose before his life ended. There had been two years during which our time together centered on his impending demise in the physical form. That was due to my 'occult' study of things like palm and face reading (chirogamy and physiogamy). It was clear to me that he would die around the age of 65. Unless, and it is a big word, just like 'IF'. Free will can over-ride the confluence of forces that create action if that free will is properly constructed with RIGHT THOUGHT. The best construct for me has always been helping others and giving. Thus I felt it would be for him. If he devoted himself to the path of giving to all of society the many things he knew that few apprehended. He was a truly educated man and could have been a Renaissance man if he had not devoted himself to our upbringing.

He said he had poor eyesight and had no desire to cheat fate. He was also quite unconvinced that such concepts had a high degree of fact and likelihood. Like me, he had always doubted and knew the value of such skepticism. He liked the idea of a spiritual cosmology that had a plan, purpose and consciousness in collective dimensional layers that harmonize. He knew I was not a follower and that my psychic experiences had been real for me. We all try to fool ourselves with massive rationale and wishful thinking. He did not accuse me of this, but he may have thought it - it was good to talk about his life and prepare myself. Saying how much he meant to me and my brothers for many times was a balm for my soul. There were so many things to thank him for and none of them were easy for him to listen to. In the end it was enough to honor his freedom and accept his choice to take whatever happened in stride. We put him in the ground the day after he turned 65.

He had a note in his wallet that gave me as the person to call in the event he died. I am the third born. He knew I knew what to say and that my story of where he was going was real and good. He had been given a clean bill of health to work after his retirement age just a couple of weeks earlier, before he went to the cottage for his vacation. He died of a heart attack and had crawled up from where he was working on the dock, as near as we can figure. He loved that place as much as he loved us. Years earlier he had visited me in Miami and we had time together as he thought about what he would do when he retired. His time in Miami Beach led him to say it was an 'elephant graveyard' that could not be his ending place. I stopped foretelling death!

Success is not my goal and no one should emulate me, it is a lonely and painful existence to be blessed with such insight. The gifts carry a heavy responsibility and separate me from those who I most enjoy. There is always the need even if I don't want to, to reach out and help someone. Being outside the materially focused 'reality' and trying to change the world like Don Quixote can also become something of a bore, when all the little things one does are crushed in the mendacity of despair and disbelief that allows the ego to deny its soul. No, I expect NO recognition and I know there is hope to see and learn for humanity. In the end if my writing has an impact it will make me have to do things that will take me away from the constant proof of ancient lovers of life that I do enjoy honoring in these words. It matters little what others think (I take a lot of pride in what they do.) because I know my soul will suffer less and enjoy more, the fruits of all I have learned, wherever I go.

About the Author
World-Mysteries.com
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Author of Diverse Druids
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Poetry-15

2007-12-18T02:08:00.001-05:00
How to Write Bad Poetry

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Feature Article

How to Write Bad Poetry
Author: Devrie Paradowski

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."--Oscar Wilde
People write poetry for a plethora of reasons, but this article has a sharpened arrowhead aimed directly at the fingertips of amateur poets who wish to be published yet refuse to learn the attributes of a well-crafted poem. These poets are the ones who plop their pieces, shining with every beam of ambiguity, vagueness and hackney, into cyberspace for review. I have encountered a few of these poets to whom I have given a courteous critique, only to be backhanded in the face by sore comments such as, "You must be too dense to get it," or "Everyone I know tells me how great I am. You're the only one"
Of course I am usually left wondering why someone would care to post a poem in a critique forum if any constructive comment given to the poet gets immediately flushed down the cyber-potty. Many new poets seem to think that writing a poem is one hundred percent emotion. They overlook the notion that, as with any craft, poetry entails a good deal of practice and learning as well as desire and talent. So instead of writing about the importance of concrete imagery, figurative language, and the art of minimizing abstractions, I thought it might be fun, (and might even tick a few people off) to write a small compendium of attributes of bad poetry.
Recipe for a Really Bad Poem
- A bad poem should not have any original language. If you aim to write a bad poem, avoid coming up with stark images. The last thing you would want to do is write something fresh, innovative, and evocative. Use as many hackneyed expressions as possible, such as "crystal clear," "dark as ebony," "blue as the sky," "dark as night," "paints a picture," "climb the highest mountain," Etc.
- An especially bad poem should be heavily weighted with abstract words such as "heart," "love" "sadness," "despair," "hate," and "destiny." The more abstract and generalized your poem, the better suited it will be to mean absolutely nothing to the reader. Aim for zero concrete images if you want a particularly bad poem. For example, "The world is a sorrowful place/ filled with sadness and hateblah blah blah." Also, be sure to TELL the poet how to describe something by using superfluous abstract adjectives! "The water is pretty;" "The world is ugly;" "His eyes were beautiful" A bad poem should never use figurative language or descriptive imagery to SHOW the reader a slice of life.
- No matter how odd the sentence becomes, or how unlikely the phrase would be concocted in normal language, make it RHYME. Rhyme anyway!! That's right, a bad poem is going to have very forced rhyme. If you have to rearrange the structure of a sentence just to make the rhyme fit, go for it! For example: "The apple blossoms fell in May/ on the grassy field is where they lay." (Notice how I just couldn't say, "They lay on the grassy field?" That wouldn't rhyme, so I had to make up a funky sentence.
- Don't worry about punctuation, grammar, or spelling. What you really want to do is to make the reader scratch her head and read it a zillion times trying to figure out what it means. Bad spelling and poor grammar will really detract from the meaning, so get reckless with your words. Try this poem out for size:
i watch as the sun/ sets over the horisen/ the ocean pants/ like a wild monster/ breaths with heavy/ breath and then falls/ something small/ always gets lost/ in the mouth/ of agony
-------or-------
u r reel speciol/ like honi sweet/ from a candy bee.
- A good practice for a cleverly bad poet is to make the objects of the poem plural! Globalize your subject for an incredibly weak impact! "Trees are" "People cry" "Flowers bloom" By pluralizing all the objects of the poem, you are blurring the imagery, thus making it sappy, intangible, and simply boring.
----------------------
Frequently Asked Questions of bad poets who want to be published but don't want to work:
-----------------
Q. Who are you to judge what a good poem is? A poem is like beauty; it is in the eye of the beholder!
A. Paul Valery once said, "a poem is never finished, only abandoned." You have to work on your poem. You have to find a certain clarity that will reach the reader. Sometimes we get so fogged up with our own emotions, we don't really see the true poem. Emotional outpours make excellent first drafts, but if you don't go any further then that, you aren't working hard enough to make your poem goodeven in your own eyes. Also, as far a judging a poem is concerned, as long as you hope to publish your poetry, it will get judged. Know what these "judgers" are looking for.
Q. If clichés were so bad, why have they been around for so long?
A. Exactly!! Everyone understands clichésalmost to the point where they don't even mean anything anymore. Poetry is an art of expression and exposition. If you are too lazy to come up with the images yourself, then you aren't really writing poetry.
Q. I write poetry for personal reasons. It is my way of dealing with the world. Why should I care what you think about poetry?
A. You shouldn't. Unless you are trying to perfect your craft so that you can express yourself through literature in some publication, you can write any way you want. Just know, though, that if you post your poem for critique, you might get some honest criticism based on poetic technique. If that is not what you are looking to get, please let people know what you are looking to get.
Devrie Paradowski is a freelance writer and poet. Her poetry has been published by several literary journals and she has written dozens of articles for various publications including "Poetry Renewal Magazine," and "Poetryscams.com." She is the author of the chapbook, "Something In the Dirt," which can be found at http://www.lulu.com/content/108560 " http://www.lulu.com/content/108560 . In 2001, Devrie founded a popular online literary community ( http://www.LiteraryEscape.com " http://www.LiteraryEscape.com ) that has become highly respected for some of the most honest and in-depth poetic critique on the Internet. In keeping with her commitment to inspire amateur writers to hone their skills, she also founded a local writer's group called, "The Fire and Ice Writer's Group."
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Poetry-14

2007-12-17T02:07:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

What's On Your Shift List?
Author: Keith Varnum
The most happy and successful people on earth have a personal Shift List. They probably don't call it by that name, but they have one. How do I know? Because these folks are enjoying their journey on our challenging planet!

A Shift List is simply a list of activities and attitudes that have the power to shift you from feeling blue to feeling new. Your Shift List is any way you devise to remind yourself of the actions that have the power to transform your mood and put you back on a roll. Your reminders might be a formal written list or journal, a set of well-placed post-its or notes, pictures or photos, cartoons or symbols, poems or songs-or a phone or email "shift" partner. When your aliveness begins to fade, you can consult your "list" to trigger actions that will get you back on track and into the Zone!

Here are some possibilities for your Shift List:

Shift Your Attitude

On average, a person has 60,000 separate thoughts a day. Every thought you have either makes you stronger or weaker. Thoughts of kindness, forgiveness and peace are strengthening. Focusing on anger, anxiety, and worry weakens you. If you keep your creating attention on the outlook that the universe is plentiful and providing, you'll attract abundance and support. If you dwell on the view that you're being short-changed and nothing ever goes right, you'll experience a world of scarcity and struggle. Focus on what's right about you or other people, instead of what's wrong. See what's working in your life rather than what's messed up.

Shift Your Activity

Devote your free time to ventures that enrich your enjoyment of life. Pursue activities that make you feel fantastic and blissed out. Begin each day with the projects that are the most exciting to you, not the chores you think you should get done. Schedule "personal aliveness time" in your calendar. Treat yourself to a full day at the spa or a relaxing ride in the country. Explore a new part of town. Indulge in your favorite food. Eat some new delight. Go on a fun date with yourself. The rest of your life will get a big boost and you'll find that you are effortlessly getting necessary tasks accomplished.

Shift Your Approach

Life is too short to work so hard at pursuits that aren't really fulfilling! You can either live your life regretting all the roads left unexplored, or you can start living the life you really want. Write your dreams down on paper to give them concrete form and power. You now have an energized blueprint of what you want and this gives your subconscious a clear signal for what to attract. To add even more voltage to your goals, visualize how you would like each day to go. Shift from thinking of yourself as a victim to realizing you can be the source, cause, creator, of what happens to you.

Shift Your Focus

Put your Self first. Choose to live life on your terms, not someone else's. Define success for yourself. What would it look like and feel like? Write down what success means for you. Use these answers as your barometer. Make your priority whatever is most important to you-God, family, friends, passion, art, your life purpose. You'll find that decisions come more easily, and you'll activate more support, love, money and magic in your life.

Shift Your Intake

We're strongly influenced by the people, thoughts and atmosphere around us. We absorb the energy of what we allow into our space. Hang with people who have the same life focus as you. Cut short draining conversations. Give extra time to interactions that are exhilarating. Switch to more inspirational reading that activates the best aspects of your character.

Shift Your Outflow

Get rid of energy drains. Resolve any issues that you have been brooding about for a long time. Bury the hatchet with friends and relatives. Praise people rather than criticize. Detach from the need to be right-and from the habit of judging or controlling others. Catch yourself verbalizing self-defeating thoughts. Stop labeling yourself while you're at it!

Shift Your Space

Clutter: The Silent Energy Sucker! Clutter has a real physical effect on your energy levels. You don't need to clean out your garage or closet all at once. Just take 15 minutes a day to de-clutter some aspect of your space. Get rid of old, dead things you don't use anymore. Add new, fresh elements to your life. Feng-shui all areas of your earth adventure. What's on the outside is a reflection of what's on the inside. What about outdated relationships? Activities that no longer thrill you? Habits which have ceased to serve a purpose?

Shift Your Environment

Get outside. Connect with nature and open spaces. Even in a city you can find a park and some greenery. Breathe in the fresh air and stretch your legs. Lie on your back, clear your mind and follow the clouds drifting by. Listen to the grass grow. Watch flowers bloom!

Shift Your Body

Move your body as much and as often as you can all day. Active, physical movement will center, balance, ground and revitalize you. The more you participate in life, the more life-in the form of love, money and health-will flow through you. Hike, jog, skip, swim, garden, cook, sing, skydive, quilt or paint. Let your body dance you. Play music that speaks to your soul.

Shift Your Vibration

Spend part of each day in silence so that you can hear Spirit speak to you. This can be an active meditation-like yoga, tai-chi, walking, running, knitting, or petting an animal-as well as a quiet sitting mediation.

Shift Your Pace

Most of us feel like we are victims to time-when in reality we control how we use our time. Slow down. Rushing has become a way of life for most of us. Gear down your walk. Slow down your speech. Take a moment to breathe. Set the tempo so that you can enjoy doing whatever you're doing.You will see dramatic positive results.

Shift Your Age

Play on the ground like a baby. Fly a kite, roll in the grass, or build a fort like a kid. Laugh with delight for no reason like a child. Dance all night like a teenager. Sit on a mountaintop like an old sage.

Shift Your Style

Under promise and over deliver. Give yourself more time to complete a project than you feel you'll need-and deliver it early! Learn to say no when an activity isn't intuitively right for you. Focus on thriving, not just surviving. Your days will not feel as frantic. You'll feel more fulfilled and happy!

©2004, Keith Varnum. All rights in all media reserved.
About the Author
Drawing from the wisdom of native and ancient spiritual traditions, Keith Varnum shares his 30 years of practical success as an author, personal coach, acupuncturist, filmmaker, radio host, restaurateur, vision quest guide and international seminar leader with "The Dream Workshops." Keith helps people get the love, money and health they want with his free Prosperity Ezine, free Empowerment Tape and free Coaching at www.TheDream.com.
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Poetry-13

2007-12-16T02:06:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Dysgraphia
Author: James O'Keefe

Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing abilities. It can manifest itself as difficulties with spelling, poor handwriting and trouble putting thoughts on paper. Because writing requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills, saying a student has dysgraphia is not sufficient. A student with disorders in written expression will benefit from specific accommodations in the learning environment, as well as additional practice learning the skills required to be an accomplished writer.

What are the warning signs of dysgraphia? Just having bad handwriting doesn't mean a person has dysgraphia. Since dysgraphia is a processing disorder, difficulties can change throughout a lifetime. However since writing is a developmental process -children learn the motor skills needed to write, while learning the thinking skills needed to communicate on paper - difficulties can also overlap.

If a person has trouble in any of the areas below, additional help may be beneficial:

Tight, awkward pencil grip and body position

Illegible handwriting

Avoiding writing or drawing tasks

Tiring quickly while writing

Saying words out loud while writing

Avoiding writing or drawing tasks

Unfinished or omitted words in sentences

Difficulty organizing thoughts on paper

Difficulty with syntax structure and grammar

Large gap between written ideas and understanding demonstrated through speech

What strategies can help?

There are many ways to help a person with dysgraphia achieve success. Generally strategies fall into two categories:

Accommodations: providing alternatives to written expression

Remediation: providing instruction for improving handwriting and writing skills Each type of strategy should be considered when planning instruction and support. A person with dysgraphia will benefit from help from both specialists and those who are closest to the person. Finding the most beneficial type of support is a process of trying different ideas and openly exchanging thoughts on what works best.

Below are some examples of how to teach individuals with dysgraphia to overcome some of their difficulties with written expression:

Early Writers -

·Use paper with raised lines for a sensory guide to staying within the lines.

·Try different pens and pencils to find one that's most comfortable.

·Practice writing letters and numbers in the air with big arm movements to improve motor memory of these important shapes. Also practice letters and numbers with smaller hand or finger motions.

·Encourage proper grip, posture and paper positioning for writing. It's important to reinforce this early as it's difficult for students to unlearn bad habits later on.

·Use multi-sensory techniques for learning letters, shapes and numbers. For example, speaking through motor sequences, such as "b" is "big stick down, circle away from my body."

·Introduce a word processor on a computer early; however do not eliminate handwriting for the child. While typing can make it easier to write by alleviating the frustration of forming letters, handwriting is a vital part of a person's ability to function in the world.

·Be patient and positive, encourage practice and praise effort - becoming a good writer takes time and practice.

Young Students

·Allow use of print or cursive - whichever is more comfortable.

·Use large graph paper for math calculation to keep columns and rows organized.

·Allow extra time for writing assignments.

·Begin writing assignments creatively with drawing, or speaking ideas into a tape recorder

·Alternate focus of writing assignments - put the emphasis on some for neatness and spelling, others for grammar or organization of ideas.

·Explicitly teach different types of writing - expository and personal essays, short stories, poems, etc.

·Do not judge timed assignments on neatness and spelling.

·Have students proofread work after a delay - it's easier to see mistakes after a break.

·Help students create a checklist for editing work - spelling, neatness, grammar, syntax, clear progression of ideas, etc.

·Encourage use of a spell checker - speaking spell checkers are available for handwritten work

·Reduce amount of copying; instead, focus on writing original answers and ideas

·Have student complete tasks in small steps instead of all at once.

·Find alternative means of assessing knowledge, such as oral reports or visual projects

·Encourage practice through low-stress opportunities for writing such as letters, a diary, making household lists or keeping track of sports teams.

Teenagers & Adults

·Provide tape recorders to supplement note taking and to prepare for writing assignments.

·Create a step-by-step plan that breaks writing assignments into small tasks (see below).

·When organizing writing projects, create a list of keywords that will be useful.

·Provide clear, constructive feedback on the quality of work, explaining both the strengths and weaknesses of the project, commenting on the structure as well as the information that is included.

·Use assistive technology such as voice-activated software if the mechanical aspects of writing remain a major hurdle.

Many of these tips can be used by all age groups. It is never too early or too late to reinforce the skills needed to be a good writer.

Though teachers and employers are required by law to make "reasonable accommodations" for individuals with learning disabilities, they may not be aware of how to help. Speak to them about dysgraphia, and explain the challenges you face as a result of your learning disability.

How to Approach Writing Assignments

1.Plan your paper

·Pull together your ideas and consider how you want them in your writing.

2.Organize your thoughts and ideas

3.Create an outline or graphic organizer to be sure you've included all your ideas.

4.Make a list of key thoughts and words you will want to use in your paper.

5.Write a draft

·This first draft should focus on getting your ideas on paper - don't worry about making spelling or grammar errors. Using a computer is helpful because it will be easier to edit later on.

6.Edit your work

·Check your work for proper spelling, grammar and syntax; use a spell checker if necessary.

·Edit your paper to elaborate and enhance content - a thesaurus is helpful for finding different ways to make your point.

7.Revise your work, producing a final draft

·Rewrite your work into a final draft.

·Be sure to read it one last time before submitting it.

About the Author
James O'Keefe is the owner of http://www.aboutrsd.com About Rsd. offering FREE articles, tips, hints, and real-world advice on how to deal with various health issues. He is also the owner of http://www.theparentaladvocate.com The Parental Advocate. , which is dedicated to helping Special Education students' parents become better advocates for their children.
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Poetry-12

2007-12-15T01:58:00.001-05:00

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Feature Article

Robert Burns Love Poem: "A Red, Red Rose"
Author: Garry Gamber

Robert Burns, a poor man, an educated man, and a ladies' man, is representative of Scotland, much like whisky, haggis, bagpipes, and kilts. He lived a life shortened by rheumatic heart disease, 1759-1796, but his life journey through poverty, informal education, disappointed love, nationalism, and literary and financial success can be identified by all Scots and common men the world over. He has become almost a national symbol of all things Scottish. His life is like a love story with a happy ending.
The Poet, Robert Burns
Robert Burns's family raised seven children on sparse, rented farmland on the west coast of Scotland. The family cottage still stands as a proud tourist attraction. The family farm was not successful and the family moved from farm to farm. Life on the farm in western Scotland was harsh and Robert worked long hours with his father.
Burn's father recognized the value of education and he managed to hire a local teacher to tutor Robert. He was an extremely bright student, mastering Shakespeare, current poets, French, Latin, philosophy, politics, geography, theology, and mathematics. His father read the Bible during the evenings around the cottage fireplace and Robert became an expert on the Bible and a devout Church member.
Robert Burns wrote his first poem at age 15. The poem was called "Handsome Nell" and was about his first love for a girl named Nellie Blair. Throughout his life, Burns was a charming and witty man, attracting the attention of numerous women. A dozen or more women can be identified as the inspiration for various poems. Burns wrote many famous love poems, including "A Red, Red Rose" and "One Fond Kiss."
Here's an excerpt from "Handsome Nell."
"O once I loved a bonnie lass,
Aye, and I love her still;
And whilst that virtue warms my breast,
I'll love my handsome Nell."
Burns, in a later comment on this poem, stated that he had "never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were, in a manner, the spontaneous language of my heart."
The Turning Point
In 1786, at age 27, Robert Burns went through a major turning point in his life. He suffered a disappointing love affair with Jean Armour, who was pregnant with his twin sons. The local community and Armour's father were outraged by the affair and her father rejected Burns's offer of marriage.
Dejected and depressed, Burns made plans to leave Scotland and sail to Jamaica in the West Indies. To finance the trip, Burns submitted a volume of his poetry for publication.
The publication of 612 copies in a simple, unbound volume was called "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect," also sometimes known as "The Kilmarnock Edition." The poems were well received in Edinburgh by socialites who were enchanted by the poems and amazed that a poor farmer could write so well.
So, instead of planning his escape to a new world, Burns planned a trip to Edinburgh. His confident manner, ingratiating style, and his obvious wit and intelligence brought Burns popularity and admiration. Soon, a second publication of his work was executed in Edinburgh.
The Growing Popularity
During his stay in Edinburgh, Robert Burns met printer James Johnson, who planned a project to print all of the folk songs in Scotland. This project enthralled Burns and embarked upon a journey throughout Scotland to collect as many folk songs as possible. Burns collected over 300 songs and wrote a few himself, including "A Red, Red Rose."
One of the results of his travels throughout Scotland was that Robert Burns ingratiated himself to everyone he met and he rose to national prominence and popularity.
The collected songs were published by Johnson in six volumes and by George Thomson in a five volume set.
Another happy outcome of this turning point in Robert Burns's life is that he was able to return home and marry his beloved Jean Armour, now with the blessing of her family.
Robert Burns continued to collect and write songs for The Scots Musical Museum, an anthology of traditional Scottish lyrical poems, until his untimely death from rheumatic heart disease in 1796.
Within a few years of his death groups of Robert Burns's friends and fans gathered to promote his memory and to celebrate his life. By 1801, five years after his death, groups met on the anniversary of his death, but later they began to meet on the anniversary of his birth, January 25. Now there are many Burns clubs and societies who celebrate his memory with dinners, including haggis, and readings of his works.
The Poem, "A Red, Red Rose"
One of the most famous songs that Robert Burns wrote for this project and first published in 1794 was "A Red, Red Rose." Burns wrote it as a traditional ballad, four verses of four lines each.
"A Red, Red Rose" begins with a quatrain containing two similes. Burns compares his love with a springtime blooming rose and then with a sweet melody. These are popular poetic images and this is the stanza most commonly quoted from the poem.
The second and third stanzas become increasingly complex, ending with the metaphor of the "sands of life," or hourglass. One the one hand we are given the image of his love lasting until the seas run dry and the rocks melt with the sun, wonderfully poetic images. On the other hand Burns reminds us of the passage of time and the changes that result. That recalls the first stanza and its image of a red rose, newly sprung in June, which we know from experience will change and decay with time. These are complex and competing images, typical of the more mature Robert Burns.
The final stanza wraps up the poem's complexity with a farewell and a promise of return.
"A Red, Red Rose" is written as a ballad with four stanzas of four lines each. Each stanza has alternating lines of four beats, or iambs, and three beats. The first and third lines have four iambs, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in da-dah, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah. The second and fourth lines consist of three iambs. This form of verse is well adapted for singing or recitation and originated in the days when poetry existed in verbal rather than written form.
A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns
O my luve's like a red, red rose.
That's newly sprung in June;
O my luve's like a melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my Dear,
Till a'the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o'life shall run.
And fare thee weel my only Luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!
*****************************
Garry Gamber is a public school teacher and entrepreneur. He writes articles about real estate, health and nutrition, and internet dating services. He is the owner of http://www.anchoragehomes.inetusanow.net " http://www.Anchorage-Homes.com and http://www.thedatingadvisor.com " http://www.TheDatingAdvisor.com.
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Poetry-11

2007-12-14T01:57:00.001-05:00
Ogham and Aymara

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Ogham and Aymara
Author: Robert Bruce Baird
OGHAM:

As any reader of my work knows by now, Ogham and an Ogham mentor played a major role in altering my life and commitment to learning about the ancients. I think Ogham was the original alphabet derived from chants, shamanic healing (Luis Beth Nion) and the lunar calendrical math shown in the work of archaeologists like Alexander Marshack. In fact I have shown that it includes binary math like the quipas even before recent research confirmed it. Here is a man who seems to see the same integration of spiritual and scientific knowledge and the choice of the name for his foundation is equally interesting. Mt. Meru is said to be from whence the Hindu people were taught their religion and I think my first published book (Diverse Druids) gave good evidences to show this is the Tarim Basin Kelts and their work. This excerpt is taken from the World-Mysteries.com site and there is a link there to more of Mr. Tenen's work at that excellent compendium of knowledge being gathered by a physicist/astronomer who has been most helpful to me and my work.

"The Meru Project is based on 30 years of research by Stan Tenen into the origin and nature of the Hebrew alphabet, and the mathematical structure underlying the sequence of letters of the Hebrew text of Genesis.

From the Introductory Text: 'The Meru Project has discovered an extraordinary and unexpected geometric metaphor in the letter-sequence of the Hebrew text of Genesis that underlies and is held in common by the spiritual traditions of the ancient world. This metaphor models embryonic growth and self-organization. It applies to all whole systems, including those as seemingly diverse as meditational practices and the mathematics fundamental to physics and cosmology... Meru Project findings demonstrate that the relationship between physical theory and consciousness, expressed in explicit geometric metaphor, was understood and developed several thousand years ago.'"

Ogham includes binary math taken into other alphabets that maintain and develop archetypes and constructs of energy. In Luis Beth Nion it is a medicinal usage that is highlighted. There are many tracts and roots for Ogham and I am not the only researcher who sees it is similar to the I Ching which may be derived from it through the Tarim Basin Red-Heads who we can now say are the people Lao Tzu went to meet as he neared the end of his life on Earth. Chanting and other harmonic or clicking noises not unlike the whales are possibly the beginning of all language and ESP would have been more developed in pre-language times as well as what Plato noted about a writing alphabet leading to a loss of disciplined wisdom. The language development schools of the Phoenician Kelts all came from Ogham and it is widely acknowledged that Hebrew and other Mediterranean languages all came via the Phoenicians.

The Aymará language of Peru is developed by the Chachapoyas leaders of the Incas and earlier cultures there. These white Keltic people who were running Peruvian cocaine to Egypt before the time of Moses are the real nature of corporate or cultural history, which I cover in my book on that region. For that reason I need to provide some of the work related to what most people cannot fathom could be true. I will leave it to the reader to verify Balabanova and her forensic court admissible proof of the cocaine mummies that Professor Martin Bernal of Rutgers also thinks is excellent evidence. You can also look to the Bas-relief in Lima that shows Kelts there in the pre-ceramic era. Let's look at the work of Sister Serghetti of the Vatican for the matter of binary code or chaos science in these original sacerdotal codes or alphabets.

The Aymará Code:

Sister Serena Serghetti of the Franciscan Order is a great linguist and she used the Peruvian Aymará language in very interesting ways which support the theory that binary math was part of the 'Quipas' (said to be able to keep poetry) and Ogham as a root for all languages which we have and will continue to touch upon. Another recent report from Steve Connor of The Independent says these things that confirm the following quotation.

" a leading scholar of South American antiquity believes the Inca did have a form of non-verbal communication written in an encoded language similar to the binary code of today's computers. Gary Urton, professor of anthropology at Harvard University, has re-analysed the complicated knotted strings of the Inca - decorative objects called khipu - and found they contain a seven-bit binary code capable of conveying more than 1,500 separate units of information."

This next quote is taken from a whistleblower site on the Web, the article dealt with Antarctica and some fishy things going on there at Lake Vostok, so please forgive the choppiness of my excerpting.

"But members of the archaeological community in the Near East point out that Serghetti is also one of the Vatican's top linguists Serghetti first made waves as a linguist in the late 1990s when she presented a universal translator software application at a United Nations Earth Summit. Building on the work of Bolivian mathematician Ivan Buzman de Rojas, Serghetti used the ancient Aymará language of the Andes to translate English into more than 26 languages.

'The rigid, logical structure of Aymará itself is ideal for transformation into computer algorithm,' she said at the time. 'Its syntactical rules can be spelled out in the kind of algebraic shorthand that computers understand.'

Since then the U.S. National Security Agency has been trying to get its hands on Serghetti's system, according to one codebreaker from Britain's MI-6 intelligence branch who tried and failed to recruit Serghetti. 'The Aymará language is so pure that the NSA suspects it didn't just evolve like other languages but was constructed from scratch,' the MI-6 source said. {A Sacerdotal language like Hebrew, used by the university chaos science types?}

In fact, the earliest Aymará myth says that after the Great Flood, strangers attempted to build a city on Lake Titicaca -- Tiahuanaco with its great Temple of the Sun but suddenly abandoned it and disappeared.

According to legend, they came from the lost island paradise of "Aztlan," the Aztec version of Atlantis. 'In other words,' said one Meso-American linguist, speaking on condition of anonymity, 'Sister Serghetti may well know the language of the Atlanteans.'"

About the Author

Columnist in The ES Press Magazine
World-Mysteries.com guest expert
Author of Diverse Druids
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Poetry-10

2007-12-13T01:56:00.001-05:00

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Paul's Letter to 21st Century Christians
Author: Rev. Saundra L. Washington
I received a letter this week that is written in Greek that I have translated and would like to share with you. It is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and it is addressed to: all my brothers and sisters living in the 21st century. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

For many years I have longed to see you. I have heard a great deal about you and all the marvelous things you are doing.

News has reached me that your scientific and technological advances are phenomenal. You have at your disposal automobiles so luxurious that the average man in my day would never have conceived such a possibility. I have heard about your ingenious skyscrapers and huge builders. I understand some folks become a bit dizzy and faint, just looking up at them. It boggles my mind just contemplating the fascinating achievements you have attained.

It is my understanding the medical technology can cure in the twinkling of an eye, the plagues and diseases that would destroy us by the thousands. All of this is wonderful. You can do so much more in your day than I could do in the Greco-Roman world of my day. Your educational facilities and advantages are superb and beyond compare to any other time in human history. You can travel distances in 5 days that in my day, required 5 years. All of this is marvelous.

And what is this I hear about that high-tech deluxe jumbo jet called Air force One. I'm told it's a floating mansion with sophisticated and extensive electronics. You have computers and cellular phones that make it possible for you to contact just about anybody in the world while cruising tens of thousands of feet in the air. All of this is simply fabulous.

I am a staunch believer in progress. I believe in development. I believe in growth and advancement. I think all of these are splendid. But I wonder if your moral and spiritual progress has kept up with your scientific and technological progress. From what I have been hearing, your spiritual progress lags far behind your technological progress. It seems to me that you have plenty of money but very little manners; lots of gossip but little Gospel; prey on bad news ignore God's good news; play too much pray too little; fine houses very few homes; lots of lust very little love; talk too much testify too little; lots of churches few temples of God; lots of formality little spirituality; lots of beliefs no faith. And what are these Situation Ethics I keep haring about? In my day it was, children obey your parents. But it seems like you all have changed it to; parents obey your children.

I am proud to hear America, that through your political genius you have managed to make your world a neighborhood. I understand that you have been able to establish working relationships with far away countries and that is beautiful. But it is tragic that with all you have at your disposal; you have failed to make it a Brotherhood.

Oh yes, my brothers and sisters, you have managed to produce the ultimate in scientific knowledge. In my day in my wildest imagination, we never would have thought of the invention of nuclear bombs; that deadly weapon that can be dropped from a plane on the heads of millions of people and can set the whole world on fire with the press of a button.

You live in an age of technological genius. But I also heard the other day that you live in an age of longing, age of anxiety, age of suspicion and fear. You live in an age in which people are afraid to defend the faith for fear of offending disbelievers; an age of compromise and acceptance and tolerance for the intolerable. You live in an age where all representations of Christianity in the work place, community and government offices are considered inappropriate and to be reserved for the private home environment only. So it seems like you have plenty of genius but no wisdom. Therefore I find it necessary to write to you to remind you; in the midst of all your great knowledge and advancement, of the responsibility laid upon you to represent Jesus Christ.

In a time when man's inhumanity to man has reached chaotic proportions and destroying the very foundation of ethical values, we need those who are willing to take a stand for Jesus Christ.

You are the salt of the earth; you are able to be a light in the midst of a dark world. You have become one the richest nations under the sun. You live in a land that flows with milk and honey. You have eaten from grapes that you did not plant; you live in homes that you did not build, and yet I hear the painful cries of people all over the world dying of starvation.

Therefore I, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, deem it necessary to write to you to inform you that God is still able. It seems to me you depend more on pills than you depend on God. I understand you have invented pills to come in all shapes and sizes, all colors and taste. You have a pill for just about everything. But it is strange that out of all these pills, there is not one that will prevent a person from lying and cheating, stealing and killing.

Well, that being said brothers and sisters; I encourage you to take a stand for the Lord. Live or die, survive or perish, stand on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ and "be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints-- and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak" Ephesians 6:10-20).

"Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen" (Romans 16:25-27).

About the Author
Rev. Saundra L. Washington, is an ordained clergywoman, social worker, and Founder of http://www.clergyservices4u.org AMEN Ministries She is also the author of two coffee table books: Room Beneath the Snow, Poems that Preach and Negative Disturbances, Homilies that Teach.
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Poetry-1

2007-12-12T01:54:00.001-05:00

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Poetry to help in bereavement.
Author: Malcolm James Pugh
When I wander in countryside,
Or when water runs quite near
I feel you are there somewhere
I feel there is more than me here
I suspect and sense Im not alone
But in the presence of quiet power
Sometimes I see it at sunset,
Others caught up in a shower.
Any time Im alone with nature,
And my senses are subdued
If I relax my attention
And Im not prone to brood
Then suddenly I know theres more
Than I can directly perceive,
In the whistling of the breeze,
In the rustling of the leaves,
And wonder if my old friends,
Are still living after all,
Just somewhere else entirely,
Out of reach and out of call,
I know at times though beyond reason
There is more than meets the eye,
Another meaning to the seasons,
Another twinkling in my eye,
As if just out of vision,
At a place of perfect prayer
You may be guard over me,
Whenever my friends are not there,
And finally when I have to leave here
I will be not be so alone,
For ill have my favourite guardian
To safely steer me home.

Below.

I look down and see you frown,
Alone and lost and bereaved,
I sense the hopeless and the helpless,
And doubters of all they believed,
You cant conceive that I would leave,
And not be there for always,
Yet I am not there any more,
And never will be all your days,
Its hard to allow Im not there now,
Just like I have always been,
But I cant get in touch conventionally,
Out of hearing and unseen,
Lost to touch and as such,
Effectively gone and passed away,
But I can speak to you sometimes,
Just in a different way,
It may be happiness in a sunset,
It may be tinkling at water flowing,
It may be coincidences always coming,
Or flashbacks in time always going,
It may be saving you from danger,
As if by a whim or circumstance,
For I watch out for you now,
And your luck isnt down to chance,
So Im not so very far away,
As you would think or believe,
Im just invisible to the eye,
Or any sense you can conceive,
But though you cant perceive me,
And think me gone dont cry,
For one day youll be with me,
And one day you will know why.

Mist.

I cant believe that ill never see,
The person that was always there for me,
The one who always had a smile,
On days when others run a mile,
Who listened to my boring tales,
And supported me when I felt frail,
Who always put me first before,
They would think of having more,
Who if they had only one would laugh,
And faultlessly would give me half,
Yet now they arent there any more,
Who I could touch and see before,
i cant phone and hear their voice,
I dont even have the choice,
Theyre gone and I cant take it in,
Ill never see them laugh or grin,
So I hope they know I really cared,
All the time that they were there,
I wish id said more instead of mimed,
But I thought wed have much more time,
So if you can hear me now at last,
I cant change things done and past,
But I can tell you that now I know,
All the debts I really owe,
And all the words I should have said,
Are still all here inside my head,
All you will ever need to do,
Is look inside me to see theyre true.

Life and Death.

Where do we go when we die,
Is there something there we cant perceive,
Maybe others would not have to cry,
If they saw just what can be achieved,
They say some religions see us weighted,
Like a deep sea diver whilst alive,
And that afterwards we are liberated,
And light enough to float accross the skies.
Perhaps if mourners could once see,
We pass from pain and age and endless toil,
Onwards to a state of pure tranquility,
And not just burned or interred under the soil.
Perhaps accepted means of disposal are harsh,
In relation to our true form and destination,
Perhaps really down here we flounder in a marsh,
Wheras afterwards we are but free sensation.
Most visions of near death encounters,
Only mention painless progress towards light,
So when it eventually seeks to surmount us,
Why fear darkness or endless night.
Those left behind have the hardest task,
To try to make sense of what is gone,
To accept we arent there any more to ask,
To realise our last glimmerings have shone,
I treasure my friends in flashback memories,
Often jolted into view causing a tear,
I cant understand just where theyve gone,
And why they are not still here,
It seems inconceivable they werent spared,
I wish Id said more when they breathed,
But I just hope they know I cared,
Even though I dont know why they had to leave.
I know in part some of my heart,
Wonders, through their untimely parting,
When my own final fate will start,
And realisation is soon darting,
That one day, someday, it will be me,
That others will see instead of them,
That it will inevitably finally be,
That I join the ranks of mortal men.

Perhaps they sense me now and feel pity,
That I have to struggle on on earth,
Whilst they live in enlightened cities,
Lit by happiness and filled with mirth,
Maybe hell is here and now and grieving,
And heaven is where you go when you die,
Maybe we should be happy at their leaving,
Maybe they look at US and want to cry.
Whatever the truth after our youth,
Fades away until the end of days,
We shouldnt waste forever seeking truth,
Shouldnt ever analyse lifes tragic ways,
Surely if they can see you and me,
They would reach down and dry our eyes,
They would want us to be happy again,
And not wander forever traumatised,
If you were they and saw the way,
You seemed to them way down below,
You would want to reluctantly say,
I must move on even though I know,
That Ill never ever hear their voice,
Never see them and never touch their face,
For its what would be their choice,
If they could only tinker with our fate.
It wont happen in just an hour,
Or just a day or just a year,
But one day it will sit easier,
Even though you are never here.
You were my friend at lifes end,
No one can take that away from me,
And no one will ever quite transcend,
What you will always mean to me,
But I understand that now its planned,
A new chapter starts as this one ends,
And I wont actually be eternally damned,
If I make new aquaintances and friends,
Ill not forget all those close Ive met,
And all the times and tides we shared,
And Ill often wonder why they went,
And why it was that I was spared,
But I owe it to their memories gone,
To not cause them grief if they can see,
And to try to pick up and soldier on,
And show them the person that was me,
For if they see the world through my medium,
Im sure they would much rather see,
A world not wrapped in tedium,
And all grief finally set free.
Its not forsaking memories of the past,
To move forwards towards new light,
Its what they would want if asked,
Its what they would see as right,
They know you will always think on,
They know you will always care,
They know because they havnt gone
Because they are always there,
Maybe they cant communicate as such,
Maybe they seem lost except in dreams,
But they still care about you just as much,
From behind seemingly invisible screens,
And they would wish you happiness,
They would want you to laugh out loud,
They would gaze with tenderness,
And they could be only proud,
If they saw your internal war,
Disappear forever without a trace,
And all the grief from before,
Become a smile upon your face.
For you cant undo whats been done,
However unfair it seemed,
It can happen to anyone,
And to any of our dreams,
You cant turn back the tide,
You can just sink or survive,
They are still there inside,
As long as you are alive,
Theres no guilt in being content,
No shame in living life again,
No need explaining what is meant,
No need to prolong the pain,
They would say so if they could speak
They would write it if allowed,
They dont want you to be meek
They dont want you to be cowed,
They just want you as you were
Before fate threw its tumbling dice
Before everything became a blur
And when everything was nice.
They just want to turn your clock,
On to a better time and place,
So you emerge from out of shock,
With a calm and happy face.

What was oblivion and apocalypse,
Beyond imagination or belief,
Has transmuted to a flock of ships,
Sailing on a sea of abject grief,
Who, battered by constant stormy rancour,
And often seemingly lost or destroyed,
Are now tranquilly at anchor,
And peacefully deployed.
Their hulls retain the knocks,
And their sails the rents of rage,
But they overcame the rocks,
And they finally came of age,
Now they know the ebb and flow,
And the tempest out of naught,
The better armed with what they know,
with all that they have been taught,
Their old crew missing a few,
Not lost just out of sight,
So they have recruited anew,
To set the final balance right,
Until the day they sail away,
Never returning to these shores,
They will be cast as unsurpassed,
And be legendary for evermore,
For not bowing to the strain,
For fighting forward though sorely harmed,
For acknowledging life is often pain,
And that we arent all charmed,
For coming out the other side,
When it was easier to fall,
It makes them worthy of our pride,
It makes them victors after all.

Life.

While we breathe we must believe
We are here for some purpose in some plan
Surely there must be lasting meaning
In the intelligence and love of man.
We often wonder why were all doomed to die
Just when we become calm and wise
And ponder anew what will we do
When we finally close our eyes
Why are we here, it is not clear,
And if nihil and darkness is our fate
Why do we strive with endless drive
With only nothingness lying in wait
Where are those dear who were so near
One can almost feel them still
As if energy waves from beyond the graves
Keep them constant in our will
Maybe all survives, for all our lives
In a constant energy flux
And sometimes were bees sometimes leaves
And sometimes we are us.
If mass is energy born in a different form
Maybe we are constantly changing guise
And we do not pass on were just there and gone
But now beyond ears and eyes
There seems little chance such a complex dance
As the human body and the mind
Was randomly formed over all
And evolved to what we find
Impossible to suppose that when life goes
It all meant nothing and is wasted
Why then are we such complexity
What of the dreams weve tasted
What of love, being hand in glove
What of friends and never parting
What reason for our seasons
What point in ever starting
I think we subscribe until we die
To a vast knowlege base building on
Then we change clothes and the old life goes
But our energy is never gone
It transforms anew to me or you
Becomes different but the same
And what we learned is surely burned
In an archive with our name.
So after all whether big or small
We all contribute in our own way
To the greater knowledge of everyone
From the experiences of our days,
So maybe we will always be
Just in a different suit or gown
Meeting again later due to nature
Cycling up and cycling down.
Its the spark that is our heart
And makes us all what we seem
And it always fires, never tires
An endless energetic dream.
So dont think of me as ceased to be
Dont call me dead and gone
Im still alive beyond your eyes
My energy simply carries on
You may not hear me with your ear
You may not see me whole
But im still me always will be
Its what you call my soul,
So when breath dies with death
And my eyes finally close
Im not passed away will not decay
Im just in different clothes.

http://www.stiffsteiffs.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk the new site everyone is talking about.

About the Author
Ex systems programmer revelling in loss of sanity.
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poetry-7

2007-12-11T01:51:00.001-05:00
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Dimly Lit Poetry - A Moonlit Journey through Urban Decay
Author: Owen Johnston

Urban Decay
Slowly descending
The spiral staircase
Into urban decay
On this night long journey -
Preceded by flashlight
And followed by the full moon,
Whose eyes hold us all in
His view as the street light
Flickers in and out in orange shades.
Spirit of the Past
The spirit of the past
Lives in
The whispers of the wind and
The hoot of the hoary owl,
Which echoes sadly evermore
Against the lonely trees -
Who for days uncounted
Have seen the endless journeys of men
Come to and end beneath them -
This final respite
Marked by names and dates
On lonely tombs.
Ghost Hunting
There is a ghost in the shell
Of every old place -
Whether the unclaimed metal skeleton
Of an abandoned steel mill,
Or the spirit that lingers
On the grounds of a historic graveyard.
These ancient places carry
The immortal remnants
Of old civilization.

Exploring them to
Examine their secrets
Like an urban archaeologist -
Chasing down the answers
To urban legends
And ghost stories -
Simply to know
What came before.
Abandoned Factory
Once full of life,
This old building;
With memories locked away
Under layers of dust.
Cigarette butts and broken beer bottles
Litter the lonely lot.
Once vital and active
In the world of mortal men,
Now immortal in its skeletal frame -
The ghost in the shell of the
Abandoned factory
Speaks secrets of long misused tools,
Broken cinder blocks,
And locked away rooms -
Modern ruins and electric tombs
Long left behind
On this hidden highway.
And evermore in urban legend.
Stomping Ground
Traversing the rural fringes
Of urban reality,
Haunting the spirits
With lamps and curious minds.
Marble City
I know when you were born and died,
But I want to see beyond the moss
On your gravestone.
Who were you in life?
Old Church
I. Cathedral.
I go back in time as I brush webs of dust
From the stained glass window,
Wondering what secrets this
Old church buried with its dead.
II. Esoteric.
As stained as memory,
This old window yet reflects light
Like the sermons once held
In the holy hall.
Farewell Party (Leaving the Old Church)
The ravens on the roof
Stand guard like gargoyles -
These grim feathered ghouls
Perch atop the once proud passages
That they now pretend to own,
And sing a sad a cappella
In mockery of memory.
To End a Journey
I leave as the morning light
Lifts the late night's velvet veil
And the moon bids farewell
To the starry sky,
Wondering if warning signs
Will be like hieroglyphs
To a future age.
Into the Light
Walking at the crack of dawn on
This early morn,
Through fresh cut grass
And beside foggy fields,
My shoes soaked with dew -

I stop to take a drink
And pause to think:
This simple heaven's
Greater'n
That urban hell.
Atalaya
Dark watch tower
Overlooking the lonely beach
Built without blueprint -
Summer home sculpted
From brick and mortar,
Its plans first and solely sketched
In the dreams of a genius and poet.
Ordered chaos - artistic anarchy;
The sculpture room seems to
Summon the spirit
Of the poet's late wife -
As if the ghost
Of the lady sculptor
Haunts the mossy halls
Just to finish her last work.
Manifest Destiny
How wild was the west?
How true rang the gold,
That men sought and killed
For it?
How mighty the steed,
And how much mightier
The man who rode it
And held the law on his hip?
How long the roads of those days?
How deep the secrets?
Would the spirits of
Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp
Speak to us in the old saloon?
The above poems were excerpted from the author's upcoming online book "Dark Passage". View other online poetry at Johnston Arts - Online Publications. Join poetry discussions at the Johnston Karate Online Community.
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